The “NO EXIT” (No Exit) campaign by the police is spreading across the country after the “Gangnam Gakuen drug and drink incident” that shocked our society메이저사이트.
The police are conducting the ‘NO EXIT’ online campaign in collaboration with the National Anti-Drug Campaign Center and related ministries for 250 days from the 26th of last month until the end of the year.
The campaign is designed to prevent drug crimes as the recent spate of drug crimes has led to a growing awareness that Korea is no longer a ‘drug-free country’.
The number of teenage drug offenders has quadrupled in just five years, from 119 in 2017 to 481 last year, according to the ‘Progress on Blocking Youth Access to Drugs’ released by the Ministry of Education on the 17th. During the same period, the proportion of teenagers in their teens and twenties among all drug offenders also increased significantly, from 15.8% to 34.2%.
This means that young people are increasingly using and selling drugs without being convicted.
Drug smuggling into the country is also at an all-time high.
According to the Korea Customs Service, so far this year, an average of two drug smuggling attempts per day have been detected, with 1.8 kilograms of methamphetamine, enough for 60,000 people to take at the same time.
In the first four months of this year alone, 205 cases and 210,000 grams of narcotics have already been seized, up from 661 cases and 410,000 grams in 2019, and up from 771 cases and 620,000 grams last year.
Actress Choi Bul-am at the ‘NO EXIT’ (No Exit) campaign to prevent drug crimes. Courtesy of the National Police Agency
As access to drugs has become easier, so has the number of violent crimes related to drugs.
According to the National Police Agency, the number of drug offenders who committed five major violent crimes – murder, robbery, rape and sexual assault, theft, and violence – more than tripled from 27 in 2016 to 93 in 2021.
Meanwhile, the NO EXIT campaign is open to everyone.
All you have to do is take a photo of the campaign image with the phrase “maze with no exit, NO EXIT, never start drugs,” post it on social media, and nominate the next two participants. If you don’t want to be nominated, you can still voluntarily take a photo and nominate the next runner.
The images can be downloaded from the National Police Agency’s official website (www.police.go.kr) and blog (blog.naver.com/polinlove2).
The National Police Agency launched the campaign on March 26 and selected actor Choi Bul-am, who previously played the role of an investigative captain in the drama “Investigation Captain,” as the first runner. He was appointed as an honorary chief of police in 2021.
Since then, the relay campaign has been spreading with the participation of celebrities such as actors Son Seok-gu, Jun-sang, and Ryu Seung-seung and Suwon FC soccer player Lee Seung-woo. Police officials and other figures from the political, academic, and medical fields are also participating.