Consumption of illicit drugs in North Korea is on the rise and is widespread among people of all ages, South Korea’s Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) said on Thursday.

North Koreans have easy access to drugs and “the consumption of methamphetamine (designer drug) has become common and cultural” since 2010, Lee Kwan-hyung, a researcher in drug use in North Korea at the NKDB in Seoul, said based on in-depth interviews with 18 defectors.

Speaking at a seminar on the actual and current conditions and problems of drug use in the DPRK, Lee argued that drug consumption was especially