College students arrested for selling self-grown marijuana

SEOUL, July 21 (Yonhap) -- Two college students have been arrested for smoking and selling self-grown marijuana to fellow students, including foreigners, police said Thursday. The suspects, whose names were withheld, had allegedly smuggled marijuana seeds into the country from the United States and cultivated them at their home in Seoul since July last year, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. The pair, who are permanent residents of the U.S. and Argentina and attend colleges in Seoul, cultivated about 300 grams of marijuana, some of which they sold to international students or overseas Koreans who were on short stays here for 150,000 won (US$142) per gram, police said. The two suspects learned how to grow the seeds from the Internet, police added. "The students who bought the drugs even smoked them openly on their school campuses," a Seoul police officer said. "Some foreign students often committed this crime in South Korea without a sense of guilt as they come from countries where smoking marijuana is not completely illegal." Under South Korean law, marijuana users or growers can be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison or fined up to 50 million won (US$47,400). "We need to enact measures to block access to information about growing an illegal plant like this," he added. In a separate case, police said they have arrested a drug offender, identified only by her surname Jung, for smuggling narcotics from the U.S. since January and selling them to foreign students studying here. The suspect received the drugs hidden in lumps of clay via international mail from a man, surnamed Woo, who was a gang member in the U.S. and had been deported there on charges of drug-dealing.