South Korea warns its 23,000 students in Canada: smoke weed and we will imprison you

So SK is saying that hometown (i.e. SK) laws supersede foreign national laws (i.e. Canada), then Canadians working/touring in SK should be toking their heads off - and when SK attempts to bust them - point out that hometown laws are the only ones that count.

I was going to mention this, and the probable reason for this huffy announcement.

Sure! They could put a wall up in their direction, and in the other direction, and declare Europe imprisoned.

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Welp, they have always said - “you can never go home again.”

I wonder what the level of due process will be?
Do they use drug testing?
Do they use social media?
How can they possibly enforce this?

And, as for the legality of the extraterritoriality, the US does this also: in regards to underage “sextours”. But the US had to specifically pass a law to do this. (Was Korea’s constitution already wired with this extraterritoriality?)

Yes, there is a general provision in the South Korean criminal code that Korean nationals are subject to extraterritorial jurisdiction. (I looked it up.)

But that law doesn’t cover drug use. There is no such provision in the Narcotics Control Act.

From what I can tell, none of the journalists reporting on this contacted any South Korean lawyers. You can’t trust the police to say what the law is.

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It’s particularly cruel of SK to announce this right at the beginning of Canada’s multi-month weed smoking season, too.

So, young Koreans face the double whammy of prosecutiona and conscription if they return home.

Next news in a few years time- the South korean government starts asking “Hey, why are all the educated young people leaving? We’ll have to prosecute them for that.”

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South Korean students and citizens in Canada may be able to claim they would be persecuted if they return to their former country, so as to apply for refugee status to stay in Canada.

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Oh jeez, now you brought formal logic to fascists’ yerk-off contest.
Messy business.

Same law in Japan - as I was reminded of last week in a big meeting. Our compliance guy reminded everyone that it was still illegal to use cannabis while in Canada, oh, except for Taj, who isn’t a Japanese citizen and is free to blaze away. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Like the US does?

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Exactly so.

After all, just because you are a guard at Gitmo doesn’t mean you are exempt from following US law.

Okay. Maybe bad example.

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They have bigger problems in the DPRK, I would guess.

This is true. It seems like a lot of people don’t realize it was basically a military dictatorship until the late 1980s. Even now it’s still a very conservative country and government imposed censorship runs rampant.

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It’s legal to tattoo if you have a medical licence, resulting in tattoo artists doing their trade illegally, because who wants to study medicine in order to be able to open a tattoo shop.

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Because, since they (Canadians) are not South Korean citizens, and since they are not physically in South Korea, the government has no jurisdiction over them. Just like how, for several decades, American citizens were subject to jail and fines (no matter how rarely it was enforced) if they went to Europe and smoked a Cuban cigar.

Yeah, and they JUST had… wasn’t it the last president removed from office on corruption charges?

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I dunno. Sounds like they are half-assing it. If they were really committed to punishing pot smokers they should do it right.

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