Is North Korea Running on Industrial Hemp? Let’s Take a Closer Look…
No one can know for sure, but North Korea probably has an industrial hemp production program that would make even the most state-hating anarchist jump-for-joy.
In May 2017, US media outlets ran sensational headlines reading “North Korea instructs citizens to cultivate hemp for fueling drones”. Now, US officials usually get their intelligence on the DPRK (North Korea) from South Korea: the North’s sworn enemy. So we should never take any news about this secretive country at face value. But like most US news stories, it’s probably about half true. We don’t know much about the DPRK, but here’s what we can reasonably conclude from the facts… (Read: “facts” meaning thing’s that can be verified. So nothing about unicorns. Sorry.)
Industrial Hemp is Efficient, North Korea is (Probably) Poor
After the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the early 90’s, many socialist countries went through periods of extreme economic instability including food shortages and reduced raw material imports. Since then, most of these countries have either remarkably recovered (in the cases of Cuba and China), or reverted to capitalism (in the case of countries throughout central and western Europe). As for the DPRK, we can’t really say much about their current economic state.
We do know however that North Korea is the most heavily sanctioned country in the entire world. For citizens living in an economic powerhouse like the US, it’s hard to understand what that means for average people. Sanctions make it extremely difficult for a country to import or export basic goods. Food, medical supplies, textiles, you name it. As a result, the DPRK has likely become super self-sustaining in order to survive. If you can’t import goods, you gotta use things you create yourself.
We know (since the hippies won’t shut up about it) that industrial hemp is efficient and cheap. Have you heard about the 383,218,903,821 things you can use hemp for?! Paper products, plastics, clothing and textiles, cooking oil, fuel, medicine, the list goes on. Hemp is also easy to grow and it requires minimal pesticides. Another US-dominated market: seeds and pesticide is a no-go with sanctions. So for a country with little capital and a surplus of labor, industrial hemp is perfect.
Koreans Have Been Growing Industrial Hemp Since Forever
Hemp production has an ancient history throughout east Asia– especially on the Korean peninsula. Certain valleys on the peninsula provide a perfect environment for the plant. Many techniques like weaving and steam processing are indigenous to Korea. Until the 50’s it was the choice material for producing yarn and textiles. So the Korean people know how to cultivate this sh*t. They’ve been doing it for centuries!
South Korea actually still produces a reasonable amount of industrial hemp; especially when compared to the US. But the demand has dwindled since the 50’s when internationally-produced materials became more readily available. The DPRK on the other hand still has reason to produce industrial hemp in large quantities: they can’t import anything. And as far as we know, when the war cooled off in 1953 (it’s still technically ongoing), North Korea was still producing a significant amount of industrial hemp.
But, Do They Smoke It?
It’s a fair question. People in the US are so preoccupied with considering hemp as a drug. Or maybe not necessarily a drug. But a plant with mind-altering effects when consumed. We think of it as a drug first and an industrial material or everything else second. Probably because it’s still federally illegal and has been throughout the lifetime of anyone reading this. Kind of like how Saudi citizens probably consider alcohol to be a drug while US adults consider it medicine.
No but seriously, hemp was always legal throughout Korea before the war. So Koreans probably don’t look at marijuana and hemp the same way we do. Do a Google search (actually don’t because you’ll get a god awful Vice story) and you’ll see really conflicting information. Some sources will praise the DPRK as a pot-smoker’s paradise claiming the “drug” is perfectly legal for recreational use. Some sources will warn against smoking pot in North Korea claiming the drug is banned for recreational use.
So which is it? Both, neither, or somewhere in between? Unfortunately, like most stories about North Korea, we have no real way of knowing.
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Randi Nord lives in Pontiac, Michigan. She is a journalist for the The Fifth Column, co-founder of Geopolitics Alert, and co-hosts a podcast about geopolitics.