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© 2018 AFPJoint session: Pot found growing at lawmakers' building
By Robyn Beck TOKYO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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© 2018 AFP
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jcapan
Judging how most of these lawmakers normally behave, I reckon toking up might improve their job performance.
Midnight Sun Tribe
Not my thing, but shame on them for hypocrisy. Heavy punishments for the general population but the MPs are getting high on their once-secret garden. Oh, yah, strategic bird crapping... No maybe a playful zephyr...
Kobe White Bar Owner
with the state of global politics maybe it would be a good thing if this was mandatory.
Yubaru
If it was any other location, the cops would be doing a hell of a lot more investigating to find the source!
Using the excuses of "carried by the wind" and "bird guano" is them making excuses to not do their job! Just because they are lawmakers does not mean that they are automatically immune from breaking the law!
Cops are afraid that one of these lawmakers might put the hammer on them if they found out!
Speed
I like how so many drivers here in Japan have marijuana leaf shaped air fresheners hanging from the rear-view mirrors and not even realizing it's a pot leaf.
Strangerland
I could see this just as easily being a prank as well. Someone buys some sh#tty weed, gets some seeds, walks by the government office the next day and pushes the seeds into the soil.
YuriOtani
At least now, we know what our Japanese lawmakers are smoking! I figure the upper house members will get their immature pot back.
theFu
My roommate in college had a small farm. He loved those plants and cared for them carefully, but without much real knowledge or skill. At the end of the semester, he harvested. You know how pizza made at home never tastes as good as most restaurant pizza? Same thing happened. No buzz, just headaches.
I suspect the PMs wouldn't have been very happy with their 100% natural plants.
Ganbare Japan!
I am troubled by this news.If these leaders are found to have grown the drugs,jail time is called for. Set an example, say NO to drugs.
Tokyo-Engr
@Yubaru. I agree with you. If some pot plants were found at your garden or mine the excuse of being blown by the wind would be laughed at by the authorities and jail time (or in my case deportation) would follow.
Goodlucktoyou
Blood test and take hair samples of all people who work in the building.
although there is no proof, this might rule out my theory of hangovers as the cause for a majority of polititions sleeping in parliament.
Do the hustle
Have to remember this one folks. This could be your get out of jail free card.
serendipitous1
No wonder some of the legislation that is passed seems rather weird!
Alexandre T. Ishii
...And who are those lawmakers and why at that building? Anything good for Abenomics?
Tokyo-Engr
I guess one could also say this brings a new meaning to the term "joint session"
TrevorPeace
This is too funny to be 'real news'. The article says the plants were two months old and 'budding'. The buds on a good plant take about that long to settle into something less about the size of a marble, when it's not in a proper grow-op with proper temperature, water, and regular fertilization.
Such a story!
Lawmakers be damned, they've just made this whole thing legal, here in Canada, where I have too many true growers to worry about what's now legal to buy or grow. Far too funny!
YuriOtani
Actually it is too unbelievable to be fake news!
nandakandamanda
You have to admire the police though, dusting the pot pots for fingerprints, checking the security cameras to see who has been watering the plants, finding the sunniest spot for them, etc.
Oh wait, no, .... none of that, it must have been birds crapping in the pots. Right. Gimme a break!
Peter14
The seeds were planted for this very reason, to leave egg on the faces of the lawmakers. Mission accomplished!
The funny/sad thing is they could go un noticed for 2 months. Under good growing conditions 4 plants could be quite large within 2 months.
Perhaps it shows that people really pay no notice of their work surroundings. Might be nice to spice up the office with colored in season flowers to get people to relax a little at work and take a moment to see something beautiful at work every now and again. That might jog the inspirational juices and reduce stress.
u_s__reamer
If J-pols are smoking it (low-grade weed?), no wonder so much of their thinking is potty! The Canadians have finally shown courage in facing the reality that the "War on Drugs" was lost long ago and now they can get ready to welcome a new wave of Japanese tourists curious to experience a different reality to that of their grey, daily grind by tasting a green bud or two , a simple freedom that has been denied them by their antediluvian, alcohol-soaked "lawmakers".
nandakandamanda
To tell the truth, if I was to grow such healthy-looking plants in Tokyo, this is just the sort of place I would choose to place them, right under the authorities' noses. Brilliant.
WA4TKG
If I'm not mistaken, weed was legal in Japan before they instigated WWII. In fact, mushrooms were STILL legal in Japan until about 1996, when they finally made a law against them.
I'd say it's about time to change things back the way they were.
thelonius
Does anyone know what party they belong to? They'd get my vote, if I could vote ;(
Strangerland
Summer, 2002. I remember it sadly.
GW
I call BS all these law makers MUST be brought in for questioning, stuck in small windowless rooms, NO lawyer, no recording & let the keystones find out whose weed this "REALLY" is!
Why on earth do all these politicians just get a bloody PASS!! Unbelievable, actually sadly totally believable! As usual laws DO NOT apply to politicians, only the man/woman on the streets!!
And where are said plants now me wonders, up in smoke perhaps!
nandakandamanda
Educator60, thanks for the correction about plants, not pots. I misread the article. Going potty in my old age. Tried to find the news reports and photos that you mention but for some reason not coming up. Do you have any links?
nandakandamanda
Ah, found a story on an English-language site. Panic over. (Still nothing in Japanese though.)
dmc27
Yet another example of how behind the times Japan really is.
gokai_wo_maneku
I'm willing to bet that they actually didn't know what it was. They are, after all, politicians.
Ah_so
It is in office used by politicians, not only by politicians. Assistants, researchers, secretaries, catering and maintenance staff are also likely to work there. Actual politicians probably make a fairly small percentage of the total number of workers there.
Ah_so
Oh no it doesn't. Alcohol is freely available to anyone over the age of 20.
Strangerland
Maybe one of the Ministers got a little over eager after hearing how Canada was modernizing.
obladi
I have absolutely no problem with politicians growing or smoking weed. None of my business.
And, yeah, I’ve seen wild hemp growing in sidewalk gardens near where I live. It’s perfectly plausible that that’s what happened here as well.
techall
"cartridge on the wind or in bird crap" , go ahead and try that excuse if you are just an average Joe.
badman
The gardener failed to properly weed the garden. Also, could have been hemp. They’re hard to tell apart if they haven’t began to bud.
badman
How many committee meetings did they have to have before the decision was made to call someone else to come pull the plants?
nandakandamanda
educator60 thanks for your excellent links. Nice find. In your third, 'kumusta' can be found this telling detail: 記者が現物を確認した時には、土壌に栽培用の肥料のようなものが撒かれた形跡もあった。
Nandakandamanda's translation: "When the (Aera) reporter first found the place, the soil around them was spread with the remains of what looked like compost/fertilizer used for growing plants."
nandakandamanda
So even if they were growing there 'naturally seeded', someone was probably taking care of them.
WA4TKG
"So even if they were growing naturally seeded; someone was taking CARE of them".
Not necessarily , I once literally threw seeds out my bedroom window once in Florida.
I happened to go around that side of the house about a month or two later, and found a plant
two feet high, never knew it was there, never watered it once.
Disillusioned
Does anybody else find it odd that this article is in the politics section and not in the crime section?
nandakandamanda
Educator60, the sense is that the compost was only under those four plants.
There is a long song-and-dance description in the article as to how they were discovered by a chap who is very knowledgable about plants but could not figure out what they were; they were obviously rare, he said, and he was actually curiously waiting for them to flower. The drift (to me) of the article is that everyone involved had some elaborately ignorant/innocent story concerning their presence there, but once the first telephone call had been made security guards rushed to the spot, ten or more people gathered, and great alarm ensued before they were eventually pulled up by the relevant authorities.
Strangerland
Looking at the video it doesn’t look like a cared for plant. It looks like a dropped seed sprouted.
nandakandamanda
It reminds me of the university in Dalian where I spent a happy summer or two. There were MJ plants growing in a triangular plot right outside the police station, and also on the northern edge of the campus, a small stand of woods when I first visited. Years later the woods had gone and the whole area was a new housing complex. Yet there by the path was the almost the same patch of plants I had seen maybe six years before, planted originally by US exchange students I always somehow imagined.
Yubaru
Why? IF anyone in this country needs a hit or two, it's the lawmakers. They seriously need to chill out, particularly the leader of the LDP! Maybe you need one two, if you are "troubled" by a little weed!
kohakuebisu
This story is very plausible because In the words of esteemed expert Peter Tosh, "Birds eat it, and they love it".
Mr. Tosh also tells us that "Judges smoke it", so that ties up all the loose ends. All that's left is to legalise it, don't criticize it.
Alexandre T. Ishii
"Joint" Session is well-elaborated matter to be the title of this column, here by the writer.
mmwkdw
No wonder they drift off to sleep during sessions.... Throw them all in Jail...
If they can get away with "A bird droppings must have carried the seeds" then anyone found with Pot plants in their garden can legitimately use the same excuse.