containing large amounts of fentanyl or methamphetamine, which teenagers and young people purchase through online shopping or social media, is becoming a serious social problem.648) The Supreme Prosecutor's Office expects increase in illegal cultivation, the number of drug abusers and addicts as economic recession, inequality and poverty intensified due to COVID-19. On the other hand, as the government is emphasizing the ‘war on drugs,’ some demand measures to solve the problem of drug addiction from the perspective as a disease that requires treatment, not only as a crime requiring punishments. The world has implemented a punishment-oriented policy for the past 50 years, which can be assessed as a failure.649) Several studies, including the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), show that the cost of investing in treatment is more economical than the cost of imprisonment for drug offenders, and many countries around the world are looking for ways to invest large amounts of money in treatment.650) B) Two Perspectives on Drug Addicts: Illness vs. Crime Among domestic drug offenders, the percentage of first-time offenders in the younger age group continues to increase, and this is a sign that the overall size of the drug users is growing. The rate of reincarceration of drug offenders after being released from prison is 45.8%, which is almost twice the average rate of reincarceration of criminals in Korea, 26.6%. Therefore, measures to curb the increase in drug offenders in their 10s to 30s are needed. While acknowledging that there is a limit to the eradication of drug crimes through investigation and punishment alone, the government is presenting countermeasures focused on supply cuts, crackdowns, and is announcing a policy of “stern responses.”651) 648) Fentanyl is a powerful analgesic that is about 100 times stronger than morphine and is widely used as an anesthetic when feeling severe pain due to its excellent sedation effect. Non-medical use of fentanyl and its analogues has resulted in thousands of deaths worldwide. Overuse of fentanyl and its analogs killed about 5,000 people in the United States in 2015, about 19,000 in 2016, and more than 28,000 in 2017, and the number of deaths is rising every year. 649) Park, Seong-su, Changes in International Narcotics Policy and Response Direction, Journal of the Korean Association for Addiction and Crime, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2022. 650) Park, Dong-gyun and Jang, Cheol-young, A Study on the Risks of Drugs in Korea and Countermeasures, Korean Public Security Administration, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2019. 651) MOJ Press Release, Oct. 13, 2022. 263