A dealer was arrested and his records show me buying three times over a year — I'm on an E-7. How much worse is "three" than "once"?

Each purchase is a separate count, and three counts over fourteen months is a different file from one — but it is not "habitual" in the legal sense, it does not change the offense category, and it does not convert a user into a trafficker. It moves you from the range where conditional suspensions of indictment are common to the range where a summary fine or a suspended sentence is more likely; that shift is real and it is worth working against. On timing: all three purchases are chargeable, because the dealer's records are the evidence, not your hair; the hair test corroborates recent use, which is a separate count. On HR: what you say now is a statement you will live with, and it should be short and true.

What this is under Korean law

Purchase and use of cannabis are offenses under Article 61 of the Narcotics Control Act (마약류관리법, mayangnyu gwalli-beop), each carrying up to five years' imprisonment or a fine of up to KRW 50 million. Multiple purchases are charged as multiple counts and sentenced together under the Criminal Act's rules for concurrent offenses, which increase the range but do not multiply it. "Habitual" (상습, sangseup) is a distinct aggravating designation in the Act for a pattern of offending that shows habit; three small purchases over fourteen months is not how prosecutors have applied it. It is a repeat purchaser, which is what the prosecutor's guidelines address by moving away from the suspension of indictment toward a fine or an indictment.

Timing and evidence

The limitation period for an Article 61 offense is years, not months; a purchase fourteen months ago is well within it. What the age of a purchase affects is proof: a dealer's ledger entry with a date, an amount and your handle, corroborated by your admission, proves the purchase; a hair test proves use in the window it covers. Your admission of all three at the first interview settled the proof question. What remains open is disposition, and disposition is shaped by what you do between the two interviews.

The second interview

Expect the police to test your first statement against the dealer's records in detail — dates, amounts, prices, how contact was made — and to ask whether there were more than three. If the ledger shows three, say three; if you recall a fourth the ledger did not record, that is a conversation to have with your lawyer before, not with the investigator during. Consistency between the two statements is what the prosecutor reads first. Attend with counsel and an interpreter; prepare your account with your lawyer.

Before the second interview, three things that move the file: enrolment in a treatment or education program with attendance records; a written submission from counsel setting out the personal-use scale, the absence of any supply, your five years of employment and residence, and your cooperation; and a clean interval since the arrest, which the police may confirm with a further test.

The realistic range

A repeat purchaser with three small buys, full admission, no supply and a program in progress is commonly resolved with a summary fine (약식명령, yaksik myeongnyeong) or, if indicted, a suspended sentence with a treatment order; a conditional suspension of indictment is possible but less likely than for a single purchase. Those are ranges, not predictions.

HR and your E-7

The police visited your office because it was where they could find you; that is not a report to your employer, and the police will not brief HR. What HR has is the fact of a visit. Tell HR, in writing if asked, that you were asked to assist with an inquiry and that you have retained counsel; do not describe the inquiry. Do not lie about it — a false statement to an employer is its own problem later — and do not confess to it either; you are not obliged to disclose a pending investigation, and you have no disposition to disclose.

A fine or a suspended sentence is a conviction the Immigration Office sees at extension, and drug offenses are within the deportation-review grounds; five years' lawful residence and a stable employer are the factors weighed on the other side. The Immigration Office decides; we do not predict. MEGA X handles the criminal case; where it affects your status, we coordinate with an immigration specialist as part of your defense.

From a former police investigator's perspective

Dealer-ledger cases produce buyers in tiers: one-time, occasional, regular. Three in fourteen months is "occasional," and investigators process occasional buyers with a second interview to confirm the ledger and check for supply, then refer. What moves an occasional buyer down the tier is a program already underway and a statement that matches the ledger to the gram; what moves him up is a discrepancy, or a fourth purchase the ledger shows and the buyer forgot. Read the ledger with your lawyer before the police read it to you.

Contact us before the second interview — text consultation or +82-2-522-3959.

— MEGA X Law Firm Korea, Criminal Defense Team