The authors have tried to evaluate the ecology of narcotic addicts in Seoul, Korea, with 120 narcotic patients who had admitted to Seoul Municipal Mental Hospital during one year from May, 1968 to April, 1969.
No addict of teenager could be found in hospitalized cases. Seventy two percent of them ranged at age group over 36 years. They are older addicts. The most of them are criminal in occupational status and source of income for drugs.
The pure narcotic abuser was estimated at 32.2 percent, pure non-narcotic abuser at 58.4 percent, mixed or alternative abuser with narcotics and non-narcotics at 8.1 percent. The most of narcotic abusers were shifted to non-narctoic ones because of difficult purchasing by way of illegal import channel, therefore, the narcotic addicts are decreasing in number year by year. But it is new problem to control non-narcotic drugs. Thepredominant drug is heroin in narcotics and barbiturates in non-narcotics.
The narcotic addicts who had habituated from due to self treatment of chronic physical or mental illnes were estimated at 59.7 percent.
We could not evaluate young adult who had habituated from narcotics as a pathological manifestation of delinquent behavior of teenager. It is possible hypothesis that they had habituated from drugs by way of selftreatment of physical or mental illness or curiosity and abuse by criminal society.
The authors emphasized the administrative control of nonnarcotic drugs as same as narctics.
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