Japan to criminalise cannabis use
Japan to criminalise cannabis use
TOKYO - Japan will criminalise cannabis use and legalise medical products using substances derived from the plant under revised laws that will take effect on Dec 12, the health ministry said on Thursday.
A population that old and conservative loves shit like that. Also, the government urging young people to instead drink more alcohol sounds like something straight out of the Soviet Unions playbook.
Drunk people might accidentally get pregnant and help with the population. Really an obvious move
FAS
We definitely have issues with alcoholism here. I think part of it is that a ton of small businesses (as well as larger ones) are ones that survive on alcohol revenue. I remember when I lived in the US, a lot of bars and breweries would fight legalization claiming it would hurt their business. I think they are stuck in the mindset that no one will leave the house or something, but that's just speculation on my part.
Alcohol leads to fucking and they need more babies. From a logic perspective it makes perfect sense.
No one smokes weed then gets overly horny.
No one smokes weed then gets overly horny.
yes they do lol
Man, high sex is so good though. For me, it's like I get tunnel vision around the sensuality, enveloped by sexual desire, where the only thing that exists is my partner, and for that time we are purely sexual beings. Every touch elicits goosebumps, every nerve at attention, like my entire body is a sexual organ in the throes of hedonistic pleasure. I never feel more connected to my partner, and for some reason it also lends itself really well to aftercare; like, once we've cleaned up and/or caught our breath, I just want to cuddle and continue to feel the safety and comfort of their warmth.
Truly the best kind of sex imo
No one smokes weed then gets overly horny.
Ummm..... Yes?
I can only talk for myself but never in my life did I have sex more crazy, borderline fucked up, as that one time me and my partner smoked weed before jumping in the sheets.
Alcohol on the other hand turns me into a useless sack of meat. Literally the end times for any boner of mine.
If alcohol consumption fixed declining birth rates, Japan wouldn't have an aging population and Russia wouldn't have been facing a demographic collapse even before the Ukraine invasion.
This isn't about boosting sex, it's about being a conservative policy counterweight to opening the door to legalizing medicines derived from cannabis.
My guess is that it's a result of an internal NJP compromise between center right and hard right factions: only agreeing to allow liberalized medical cannabis policy, if the law also increased the scope of, and penalties for, recreational uses.
But that's just my assumption based on my limited understanding of Japan's post-war uniparty government.
The original propaganda against weed, called Reefer Madness, was all about how black men would smoke weed and then literally couldn’t stop themselves from raping white women because they got so horny.
(I guess I have to point out that of course that isn’t true)
No one smokes weed then gets overly horny.
Yes we do.
Then what's with the 420-girls porn?
WTF? Japan, you're supposed to be doing the opposite!
They are some of the most repressed puritans. I would always try to get my friend to leave work early (in reality on time) so we could do something but they will not stand up for themselves. Have to put in the minimal 10hrs per day in a 40hr workweek or you are a slacker.
They're preoccupied trying to figure out how to get their population to stop disappearing.
The population is aging badly
amid increasing concerns that the lack of a ban on use is promoting drug abuse by young people.
This fucking backwards ass notion of weed as a "gateway drug" needs to die. Their reasoning for calling it that shows their idiocy, in that it's called that because it's cheap and harmless, so they think it will lead to people believing other drugs are similar. Imagine branding something as dangerous because it's (Checks Notes) cheap and harmless.
Although from personal experience, I'd say that weed is a gateway drug of sorts, in that if you're addicted to something far more dangerous (like alcohol), using weed can act like a "gateway" to sobriety.
And yet alcohol shall not be banned.
What are they thinking?
They can't stop people from making bathtub wine.
In my experience weed can be a gateway drug when you have to buy it from a drug dealer. As an analogy, lots of people end up buying something other than what they went into Target to buy.
Also a criminal record can fuck your life in a myriad of ways, if like me you fall in love with someone from another country and you both have weed charges neither country will let you live together even decades later destroying what's probably your only chance at happiness.
These rules are needlessly cruel and absurd.
Whatever it takes to get people to take some shrooms and chill all the way the fuck out
Also, dealers don't check ID.
Welcome to Japan, where everything, especially their mentality is fatally stuck in the glory days of the 1970/1980s.
Even today they still use fax and computer usage is the office middling and general computer literacy is abyssal.
It's Japan. If anything is promoting drug abuse, it's the work culture.
It's not entirely harmless, but more harmless than a lot of OTC medicines.
It's not harmless. It's linked to mental illness and increased stress. People need to stop spreading this myth.
EDIT: I know that people are down voting because weed is incredibly popular and rarely does harm, but that doesn't mean you should propagate the myth that it's harmless. Your personal experience should not speak for everyone.
Weed can easily cause intense anxiety and paranoia if the user takes more than they can handle. This is just as true for someone who is trying it for the first time as it is for someone with a long history of use.
If you have ever had panic attacks or heart palpitations, the combined increase in heart rate and anxiety may trigger a panic attack. It's also habit-forming enough that people who've had panic attacks will keep using it despite knowing they are risking a really stressful experience.
if you're into that, just wait till you hear about alcohol and cigarettes! Anxiety, paranoia and panic attacks seem fine compared to Cirrhosis, COPD, Emphysema, Cancer, Stroke, Renal Failure, Kidney Failure, and Fatty Liver Disease. All of them painful, all of them deadly.
But god forbid people smoke some weed 🙄 They might in very rare occasions get a temporary increase in anxiety!
This is worse than you think. Most countries don't criminalize use, only possession. Criminalizing use like Sweden does likely means that even having cannabis in your system is illegal and could lead to fines, criminal record, and jail time. It's insanely backwards.
Sweden is nuts. When I moved here, I was shocked. It's really backwards. Everyone drinks here, but weed is something like heroin to them. They should all smoke weed.
When I traveled through Europe, I left Netherlands on a train, and ended up in Sweden with a couple hash joints left. I found a secluded area near train tracks to smoke, and even then it's like I could feel the illegality of it. It was made worse by the fact that everyone walks or bicycles there, so random passerbys kept coming along making me feel tremendously exposed. 1/10 would not recommend.
On the other hand, smoking a hash joint and chatting with friendly strangers in the weed cafe's of Amsterdam was sublime, 10/10 definitely recommend.
No thank you, and I'd really like it if people stopped smoking it in public places. Many marijuana users seem to have very little regard for other people. Absolutely reeks of it at many central stations, on the subway, commuter trains and busses. Quite literally makes me sick. At least most tobacco users have the decency to not ruin enclosed public spaces for the general populace.
What if they consumed cannabis a week before in the legal country?
In most cases if you are a tourist and are accused of minor crimes you just get deported unless you've done something else more serious. Detaining someone on a short term visa is awkward (what if their passport expires while in custody?) and kicking them out of the country accomplishes the same thing as jailing them.
but getting blind drunk in the street every night for them is fine. Ridiculous.
There's a reason why countries with proper transit infrastructure view alcoholism as a novelty.
I'm honestly not sure what you're saying. Countries like the US with poor public transit infrastructure think alcoholism is serious solely because of people who drink and drive?
I was shocked at how often you just see people laying passed out on the sidewalk or sleeping on a bench. Japan is an insanely different place after the bars start closing. Was genuinely uneasy with how many people everywhere just had zero control of themselves.
Like smoking, alcohol is a huge industry in Japan. It's "normal" for Japanese companies to addict their employees to their products and because the companies ARE the government, they enact incredibly protectionist laws like this to prevent external competition.
Their economy depends on it. It's super gross. Like America and guns, or Sweden and flatpak furniture (the last one is a half joke)
If Japan starts being a cannabis producer, they'll 180 so fast you'll get vertigo.
Honestly, i think the reason is that just the right amount of alcohol dependency is amazing for capitalism. Dont get me wrong, I'm not judging anyone. I understand and I enjoy a drink myself. I just think we need to be honest with ourselves about it.
It keeps you consuming and it makes you forget all the bullshit you had to put up with all day. It dulls your your problem solving, your creativity and (most importantly) your empathy, so supervisors, middle managers, department managers and execs are less disinclined not to beat down on those below them.
I'm not saying its some grand conspiracy. I'm saying, those in power have known exactly the right drugs to administer to the masses in order to placate them. The Romans knew to give wine and not cannabis. The British army knew to give rum & brandy but not weed.
In fact, all of them were legal. Then, capitalism really took off and, totally unrelated in sure, every drug other than alcohol suddenly became illegal.
Part of the world: takes a step forward
Japan: not on my fucking watch
Wasn’t it already illegal. My wife’s cousin served two years for an amount that is so small police wouldn’t even bother to confiscate it in europe.
I don't like weed. I've tried it throughout my teens, but left it there.
With that said, it's amazing to me that we're still having the same conversations around drugs. Decriminalise EVERYTHING! Ensure what is on the market is clean, drive the costs down to remove criminals from the market, and dedicate every police force to protecting those on the bottom rung of the drug ladder.
I read a book from a former officer a while back, where he'd spent two years working on infiltrating a drug network. It was successful, and they not only shut down a major network of drugs, but arrested around 100 people, and removed tons of illegal weapons from the market, and arrested several people in the network known to police for being involved in several murders. They believed that the drug market in the UK during this time had been disrupted "for three hours". That was all it took for another gang to take over, and apparently it's those successes that cause a lot of people to leave drug enforcement - after all, what's the point?
There almost seems to be zero benefit to drug criminalisation, other than "old conservatives hate it".
The police love drug criminalization because it gives them widespread latitude to hassle pretty much anybody they feel like whenever they feel like, because "drugs could be involved." Marijuana especially, since stoners are generally fairly nonthreatening folks but "I smelled marijuana" is a zero-effort way to instantly manufacture a fictitious probable cause for anything.
Rich corporations and people profit, everyone else is criminalized for reasons.
Fucking idiots. Legalize and tax it. It works every time.
I actually think it would be detrimental to Japanese demographics.
They are already having a hard time trying to convince young people to give up their freedom and pop out more babies. Weed would only make them think more clearly, not blindly.
Idiotic position in 2024.
Idiotic position in 2024 BC too.
I work at a company that has big offices in Japan and the US (as well as many other places) and it’s pretty interesting to see the contrasts in living standards and expectations up close.
On the one hand, when coworkers visit from Japan they are disgusted by how dirty, unsafe, and uncourteous the US is by comparison. They complain endlessly about the low quality standards of the food. I picture myself having to pick worms and hair out of everything and that’s what things seem like from their perspective.
But then some of them move to the US because they can’t handle the stuffy, oppressive attitude in Japan. Everything is about what you can’t do or aren’t supposed to do. One guy said he was so relieved to go to the US where people know how to say “we can find a way to do that.”
From your description alone, knowing only the US and not Japan, it sounds like Europe is the middle ground. Not as free, but less socially oppressive. I mean, in Japan it's mean to walk while you eat.... how deep is the interference running?
Edit: Am from Europe, sorry should have added this.
There are two kinds of freedom, negative and positive liberty. US has a lot of negative liberties, they dictate little in what you can or cannot do, but is lacking in positive liberty, they don't support you very well to do what you want to do.
While Europe might have less negative liberty, their generally better social welfare system grants people more positive freedom.
R2 we're supposed to be going up not down!
It's gonna create a black market
Japan sees record cannabis cases in 2023, 70% among young people
They would rather have you drink Japan urges its young people to drink more to boost economy
That’s a misleading headline. Makes it sound like 70% of young people use cannabis. The figure is that of people who were charged with cannabis related crimes, 70% were in their 20s. About 1.8% of their population had ever used cannabis in 2019.
Possession of marijuana is already illegal in Japan. Now they're sending anyone to prison that's tests positive for thc metabolites. Boycott these fascists, don't buy stuff from Japan and don't support Japanese companies if you can help it.
While the possession and cultivation of marijuana are already banned in Japan, the country will prohibit its use as well, setting a prison sentence of up to seven years for violation.
Ok, so that clears that up.
This is so fucking backwards it's not even funny
Can't be arrested for smoking if your buddy holds the bong for you I guess
I told a guy in Tokyo we smoke weed walking down the street in America and he looked at me like I was insane.
It's just a fucking plant
Evey plant is a fucking plant if you in-plant it far enough.
Great way to regress in societal development.
Great. Now the Korean mafia can get busy. 🤦🏽
Just Japan doing Japan things.
This is to close off profit to anyone but those selected. They know they are going to incarcerate more people, too.
What a wierd fucking reason to not currently punish weed consumption and then to use such an antiquated reason to criminalize it. The whole article read like something out of 1920's-1950's America. So dumb.
1a. It's a relatively small incentive to get people to emigrate, particularly the young.
(my bold)
In 1985, the People's Republic of China joined the Convention on Psychotropic Substances and identified marijuana as a dangerous narcotic drug, and illegal to possess or use it. The penalty for marijuana possession in China is disputed from various sources, but according to the Law on Public Security Administration Punishments, marijuana smokers shall be detained for 10 to 15 days and fined a maximum of 2,000 yuan.[16][17] However, the cultivation of cannabis for industrial purposes (hemp) has never been prohibited in China.[1]
On another hand, cannabis seeds have been continuously listed in the Chinese Pharmacopeia[18] and hemp has never been prohibited in the history of the country.[19]
I thought they already did that. (Didn’t a number of touring rock stars, including IIRC one of the Beatles, get busted for having it?)
Use vs. Possession
Possession is the behavior that’s typically illegal, but use is legally tolerated because people can be exposed to it (the article gives the example of farmers being exposed while producing legal hemp).
Hi
Hello
Is it Mary Jane you are looking for??
I'm going to boycott everything having to do with Japan from now on then. Putting people in jail over thc metabolites is absolutely wrong and absolutely unacceptable.
I always figured the stories about Japan, Norway, New Zealand, Germany etc being liberal paradises were simplistic and overblown, but it's still surprising to see such a backwards position here.
Japan? Liberal Paradise? Since when????
Japan has been highly patriarchal, hating of foreigners, especially gaijin, and fairly conservative overall if only from a Shinto/Tao/Buddhist perspective than a Christian perspecitve like the rest of the west.
The weabos who dream of living in Japan would be fairly ostracized unless they spoke perfect Japanese.
There are growing trends in the youth, but their conservative patriarchy is still holding strong for now.
On a side note, the massive amount of US debt Japan owns combined with the Yen carry trade means there could be a dramatic economic/societal shift in a short period of time, were anything volatile to happen.
This is the first time I've even heard the idea of Japan being a "liberal paradise". I thought it was widely know Japan was super conservative.
In fairness, "gaijin" is any foreigner. And a lot of laws in Japan are very much based on warped Christian values (can't imagine who they got that from...).
But yeah. One of my best friends is Japanese American and the way she sums it up is: You know you truly understand the culture of Japan if you realize why you only want to visit for a few weeks at a time.
With bonus points for anyone who can read quickly realizing why the general stance toward APA is "Only if you get a REALLY good deal"
Japan? Liberal Paradise? Since when????
My thoughts exactly. It is left of the US on a few things like social safety net and healthcare, but mostly the same (which, compared to much of the western world is still quite far to the right).
hating of foreigners, especially gaijin
Wat? What do you think that word means?
would be fairly ostracized unless they spoke perfect Japanese.
Source?
There are growing trends in the youth, but their conservative patriarchy is still holding strong for now.
Getting them to vote would help. Obviously anecdotal, but a lot of young adults I knew didn't vote.
I'm from the US and have been living in Japan almost a decade. I don't speak perfect Japanese by any stretch, but I can generally handle myself unless we get into certain medical jargon or legalese. I own a house and a small farm. Your premise on being ostracized is false, however; racists gonna racist so policies or people that exclude others aren't generally going to give a shit if the person speaks flawless Japanese. On the other hand, I think the internet has a kinda warped view of what living here is like and how foreigners are treated. There is racism, particularly in trying to get an apartment. I've also been treated like a normal person more than I've ever been treated like some outside or zoo exhibition.
I find this to be largely true, especially of older people, for foreigners who live there. But not to discourage a visit: you are very welcomed as a tourist in most places in Japan, and any Japanese you speak will be appreciated.
Where do you hear those stories?
You may need to re-evaluate where you're getting your information from
The only thing good about Japan is their transit system.
Their cities do look clean af. The people there seem to have a higher baseline level of mutual respect than most Western nations. Unless you're a foreigner.
Shocking: Nazi country bans plant because worker productivity, or something. I wonder why their suicide rate is among the highest of any country in the world?
Get your fucking act together, Jesus Christ.
While Japan's suicide rate isn't the lowest, the rate in the US (where you live per your comment response) is HIGHER than here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
I also don't understand how you get Nazi from Japan. Japan is both left and right of the US on a number of issues (though being left of the US position in some things isn't a high bar). Do I like the government here? Not particularly (and neither that of the US as both make some pretty bone-headed decisions in my opinion). Is it a Nazi hellscape? Absolutely not.
I'm originally from the US and have been living in Japan for just under a decade. I have universal healthcare (including dentistry and vision), own a home, run a small farm, and have amazing neighbors who largely treat me like anyone else (wherever you are in the world, there's always that one person). I have good worker's rights as a full company employee and more legally guaranteed leave than the US (and yes we're allowed to use it).
Because I'm tired and angry at the state of the world.
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