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© KYODOAdvocacy groups ask gov't to rethink harsher anti-cannabis law
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sir_bentley28
Of those 5,034 people, how many of the committed any SERIOUS crimes? (murder, robbery, assault, damage to property, vasdalism, theft) I'm willing to bet none because its its a harmless drug. Its just grass. Let's take this monment to thank 1950s America and its "reefer madness" propaganda for spreading such lies about this drug while ignoring all the benefits of it!
Kento Yakuza
Legalize it. If people can smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol which is 100 times worse for you on a health point of view then why can't adult have the rights to smoke a joint after work? Japan needs it the most seeing how high pressure life is here. People working 50-60-70-80 hours weeks needs this. I can garentee the sucide rate will lower dramatically as more will start smoke and relax then get drunk and commit sucide
Nouknown
Legalize it !!!!
don't put people in jail just because they smoked a plant legalize it stop destroying young youth
stop this japan legalize it there is no freedom in a country if u go to jail for smoking a joint !!!!!!
Strangerland
Depends on the province. In British Colombia smoking of cannabis is allowed where tobacco is allowed. My dad smokes outside at smoking areas in public.
Strangerland
I've got lots of tattoos. I'm not allowed in most gyms and pools and sento. But, I'm alowed in some gyms, some pools, and some sento (and pretty much every overnight onsen). So it's not as cut and dry as you paint it.
Zaphod
Euro Dude
Do you live here? This has changed a lot in the last few years. These days, plenty of young people have tatoos. I hope the same will happen with cannabis.... Japan is just slow to change, which I do not think is a bad thing.
starpunk
Mary Jane never brings out the agressive side in anyone.
When I vacationed in Canada iin 2019, I smoked some weed from the Chooms national distributer and from Smoke On the Water (honest, true name!) dispensary and farm on the Tyconderoga Mohawk Reserve. First Nations farmers are making a windfall with hemp, and everything you buy there is tax-free. And herb is restricted like alcohol - no DUI, don't do it in public. Be mature about it. Legal age in Ontario is 19, Quebec 18.
Strangerland
No, they are the different strains of the same plant.
I mean, sure, if you ignore the reality of our current existence on this planet, and our entirety of history as a species, where people have been intoxicating themselves since monkeys figured out that you could eat certain mushrooms and get high. There are humans seeking experience through substance every single minute of every single day.
Such a time has literally never existed in humanity. Humans have always intoxicated themselves. Some religious nuts have in the past 80 or so years decided that intoxication is bad, and put together a puritan campaign, then forgot that things had ever been different.
Zaphod
Tora
....and not only humans. Check Youtube or similar sites for drunken elks or cats on catnip, it is quite hilarious. I understand there are really dangerous drugs like the Fentanyl shipped from China, but Cannabis is not one of those. Not even close.
Tora
Tom Young
And when would that have been, exactly ? There is plenty of evidence that humans have been doing drugs for all kinds of reasons, including the one you mention, since time immemorial. Drugs are what humans have always done and will continue to do (legal or not). Part of our fabric, if you like. Now pass me the bong.
Zaphod
ScottDRad
From my experience, I can not imagine any health costs from using Cannabis. Unless you mean over-eating because food is suddenly so delicious or lost work hours due to laziness. Isnt Cannabis just about the most well-understood, historically integrated and safe drug around?
proxy
Somebody could smoke a tonne of hemp and not get stoned. Are hemp and marijuana undifferentiated under Japanese law? I believe other countries define hemp as containing less than 0.3% THC.
ScottDRad
"Damn stoners on JT. Don't you know this stuff causes psychotic episodes?". This is exactly why drugs should be sold legally so that the tax revenue from sales can go toward paying for the health costs from using cannabis. Why should the black market operators make all the profit? then the tax payers are left with the bill for people hospitalised due to mental illness from drug use! Not to mention that many people using illicit substances have undiagnosed mental health issues. The term is self medication. Japan has a long way to go in addressing the avalanche of mental illness in its own country derived from a high stakes, high pressure life.
Do the hustle
Hemp grown for rope is completely different to hemp grown for smoking and most contains very little (if any) THC.
Hemp is a wonder plant that can be used to make paper, textiles and biofuel. It grows quickly and doesn’t need a lot of care or chemical fertilizers. Only in a naive country like Japan would it be confused with the hydro buds people are smoking.
Tom Young
Humanity seeks relief from life with substances. I don't know what the solution is but we were a lot better off when people faced their hardships without drugs/alcohol.
Zaphod
I just notice now how misleading that phrase is. "Cannabis related crime" here simply means the crime of possessing the stuff, i.e an artificial crime. I would bet the number of of other crimes (theft, violence, whatever) committed as a result of smoking it is either zero or close to zero.
Strangerland
You're right that they are different strains, but they are both cannabis plant. So the terminology is right, even though it's written with a lack of clarity to the differences between these strains.
Strangerland
Apparently the streets of Canada are full of cannabis-infected zombies in the thralls of psychotic cannabis-induced psychotic episodes. Every street, every city, every hour, every day. Their society collapsed because they dared let their people smoke cannabis.
Oh wait, no that's not real. They just made a lot of tax revenue and stopped arresting people for being adults and doing adult things.
Japan could benefit from following suit.
Paul Lane
Medical Cannabis is the place to start ..
also you’d think that the Yakuza would be all over this..
William Bjornson
So, ~5000 of Japan's brightest young people are life-marked in a year for nothing but being disobedient to their brain dead leadership who cannot see a growing worldwide awareness of the idiocy of severely socially harming young people "to keep them from harm". They lie, and they lie cruelly to preserve the rivers of toxic alcohol which, daily, flow through the gullets and arteries and livers and kidneys and benjos of Japan, damaging everything it touches and, not least, the peace of the family cursed with an alcoholic. Given what we see in the world and the million times PROVEN benevolence of a natural pharmaceutical which Nature itself has made ubiquitous in our world, when compared to a poisonous waste product that simply numbs, poisons, our minds, and yet is advertised freely, encouraged in every media production, and pouring under the table Gelt into the pockets of the 'leaders', when we compare these honestly, we can see only legislative corruption. There can be no other excuse for such profound wilful and harmful 'ignorance'. How many more young people's future lives will these crooks maim?
Strangerland
This is typical of Japan to double down on feeling over science.
If there was ever a populace of people that could use some weed to wind down a little, it's this one.
Zaphod
Isn´t that a misunderstanding by the writer? I am pretty sure they are talking about industrial hemp, not the stuff used to get high. It is a very different strain of the plant.
Mark
""Possessing cannabis is illegal in Japan, but some farmers are licensed to cultivate it, as hemp has been used from ancient times for items such as "shimenawa" sacred Japanese rope at shrines.""
And there you have it, it is LEGAL to grow you just need to know the right people and or connection, if it's good for the shrine then it must be good for the rest of the souls.
I rest my case.
Tora
When you can't even say the "M" word here without eliciting gasps of horror and teeth sucking from those around you, I can't see any kind of talk regarding decriminalisation, or heaven forbid, legalisation, happening any time soon.
Think Reefer Madness on steroids and that will give you an indication of the attitude toward drugs by the average Japanese person.
A big part of the issue is that there is a very weak public sphere here, which ensures public debate on anything that the Party deems so is discouraged and closed down in a very timely manner.
Spidey
Speaking as a Canadian (sweet leaf is legal)... Can't we just all get a bong?
1glenn
It seems to me that since cannabis was legalized here in California, its use has actually gone down, not up. At least, I see less of it than I used to. The "mystique" has gone, sort of like the way the prohibition on alcohol a hundred years ago seemed to encourage people to partake.
Japanoob
@TokyoJoe
Makes most people fall asleep in front of the TV holding an empty tub of Ben and Jerry's.....
Thanks though! What you wrote made me laugh :-)
albaleo
Youngsters, eh. They should take a tip from those older surfers who rarely get caught.
dbsaiya
I've done more than my share of inhaling and I can tell you that the drunkards in Japan are more of a nuisance than any of my comrades in cannabis ever have been. Japan has more important things to tend to than to criminalize whaky tabaky.
snowymountainhell
“It’s ‘criminal’ because... its labeled as such.” - Once again, an issue that warrants broader, public consideration and debate before pending legislative action is relegated to the “Crime” section. Shouldn’t this be an issue for “National” consideration.
rainyday
In typical fashion the rest of the world is going one way on this (decriminalization), Japan is going in the opposite direction (and for zero determinable reason that makes sense).
Ken
I'd love to get a job harvesting the holy herb to make shimenawa.
Where do I send my resume?
lostrune2
The CBD side of marijuana should be ok with a lot of uses
lostrune2
The CBD side of marijuana should be ok with a lot of uses
Cricky
Fair enough Japan has just not reached the level of mental maturity to be able even to discuss such a topic. Best lock up anyone not conforming to the views of 70yo drunken men.
HoldingYouAccountable
just look at what happen in Japan with all the alcoholics...
Sven Asai
No, make it even harsher, or better to say, the maximum harshest possible.
Michael Machida
The only reason Japan does not want this in Japan is because it would relax its workforce. Dang Dog!
Cricky
The expert panel instead of looking at harsher penalties, that obviously haven’t worked anywhere in the world. How about addressing the causes of drug addiction. Or is that to much for the expert panels cerebral volume.
bakakuma
Legalizing would be the best thing in terms of government policy. May help solve alot of the plaguing problems.
HoldingYouAccountable
Cannibas doesn't get you High..THC does you uneducated cash suckers (The Gov't).
tomlives
While the rest of the civilized world are relaxing legislation around its use, good ol' Japan is, yest again, doubling-down on the side of ignorance and oppression. The 60s never happened here.
gaicuckojin
Nah, canabis is for losers and homeless just look at what happened in the US