North Korea’s crackdown on drug trafficking has intensified sharply this year. The tightened enforcement has shrunk methamphetamine distribution networks, and it has driven prices for the drug sharply higher, according to a source with knowledge of the country’s northern border region.
A source in North Pyongan province told Daily NK on Tuesday that police have recently launched a sweeping crackdown on drug-related crimes. The effort is concentrated in areas along the North Korea-China border, and it has made methamphetamine, known locally as “bingdu,” far harder to obtain than before.
Methamphetamine use became widespread in North Korea in the 1990s, when the drug was manufactured domestically and traded informally as the state-run economy collapsed during a devastating famine. It remains one of the most commonly abused substances in the country today.
Until just a year or two ago, people in the region could obtain the drug fairly easily through merchants who specialized in handling and distributing it, the source said. Under the current crackdown, though, those merchants have largely disappeared from view, and the drug trade itself has contracted sharply.
In the past, most people caught distributing or selling the drug could bribe the police officer who caught them and avoid serious consequences. Officers who accept bribes now face harsher scrutiny themselves, the source said, and that method of avoiding punishment no longer works.
Meth prices climb sharply as supply networks shrink
As the crackdown has squeezed distribution networks, prices for methamphetamine have climbed sharply. A single dose once sold for 100 to 200 Chinese yuan, or roughly $15 to $30, the source said, and it now regularly tops 500 yuan, or about $75.
Demand for the drug remains steady, the source explained, but supply has fallen sharply as the risk of arrest and the severity of punishment have both increased, and that imbalance has driven prices upward across the board.
The source added that instances of drug misuse among North Korean people have noticeably declined as a result. Methamphetamine has long been used informally in the country as a stimulant or as a substitute for painkillers.
That pattern now appears to be fading as the drug grows scarcer and far more expensive. “In the past, plenty of people would reach for bingdu instead of medicine when they felt sick or run down,” the source said.
“But now, with prices this high and the fear of getting caught, people don’t seek it out the way they used to.” Prices have climbed so high that even a single dose is hard to afford, the source said.
As a result, people who had used the drug habitually are cutting back or quitting altogether. Authorities appear to be tightening drug enforcement for two overlapping reasons.
One is to curb the spread of drug misuse among North Korean people. The other is to dismantle the informal distribution networks that have taken root in the country’s border regions.
North Pyongan, Ryanggang and North Hamgyong provinces all border China, and they have long served as key conduits for drug trafficking and other informal trade. Authorities appear to be concentrating enforcement resources there in an effort to root out distribution networks entirely.
“Border areas along the river have always been a hub for the drug trade, so enforcement there has always been far more intense than inland,” the source said. “Now, the closer you get to the border, the harsher the crackdown, to the point where people are afraid to even say the word ‘bingdu’ out loud.”
Reporting from inside North Korea
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September 17, 2026 at 12:59AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)