The Japanese have some of the harshest drug laws in the world.
The US State Department warns of how harsh Japanese law can be on foreigners caught with illegal drugs in Japan:
…offenders can expect long jail sentences and fines. In most drug cases, suspects are detained and barred from receiving visitors or corresponding with anyone other than a lawyer or a U.S. consular officer until after indictment. Solitary confinement is common.
But initially, I wasn’t worried about any of this. I have a Maryland Medical Marijuana card for chronic back and hip problems, the result of wear and tear from sports and hiking in the canyons of the American Southwest over the course of many years. Weed helps me sleep. And I figured my medical condition would protect me from any stupid drug laws in Japan. They would totally understand.
A Russian friend who goes to Japan regularly shook his head sternly when I told him of my plans. “Don’t bring any drugs into Japan. Period.”
I laughed like a dumbass and replied. “They won’t catch me. Police dogs at the airport aren’t sniffing for drugs any more. They are after bombs. I won’t have more than a couple of grams. And if I do get caught, I’ll just show them my Medical weed card.”
Igor shook his head “First off, the guard dogs at the airport will find the pot. Guaranteed. Second, the amount is irrelevant. And they don’t care about your medical card. You will go to jail for a very long time. And given your age, you will probably die there.”
I thought he was exaggerating, so I went online and did some research. I also checked out some travel blogs. The unanimous consensus was: DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT BRINGING DRUGS INTO JAPAN.
So I didn’t.
And it’s a good thing, because when we were standing in the baggage area of customs at Narita Airport, waiting for our bags to be off-loaded from the plane, two no nonsense agents with white and black labs roamed the baggage area. I was sniffed by the curious canines no less than twelve times in the course of about fifteen minutes — I counted. The police were incredibly thorough and everybody was repeatedly checked. They even found some fruit in a lady’s handbag and then gave her a stern lecture So, my buddy Igor was right, I would have definitely gotten busted in a heartbeat.
It would have been nice to have a little weed to help me sleep after a long day of hiking around the cities and mountains of Japan, but sake and beer helped to dull the hip pain. Sleep came pretty easy.
But I was still very curious as to why the Japanese are such hard asses about marijuana. None of the stories I read explained why the drug laws were so strict and unforgiving.
I got my answer by chance one night when I ran into an English filmmaker at an Irish pub in the Gion section of Kyoto. We were chatting it up and since he spent a lot of time in Japan I asked him about weed. He told me it was available, but it was very expensive and was like the pot we had in America back in the seventies — dirt weed and shake. “Definitely not worth doing jail time for.”
We ordered another round of Guinness and Grahame said, “Do you want the back story?”
“I love back stories,” I chuckled.
Grahame smiled. “After World War II, the U.S. forced Japan to outlaw weed. Up until that point the Japanese had a long and rich history of using hemp — for clothes, rope, cooking, construction materials, and just enjoying the nice buzz. Hemp goes back centuries in Japanese culture. After the war, it was outlawed and has been illegal ever since.”
We clinked classes. “A toast,” I exclaimed, “to American intervention and making the world safe.”
Grahame laughed. “But that’s not the whole story. The American’s weren’t foisting their blurred vision of reefer madness on the Japanese. No. They did it for the DuPont family.”
I shook my head in confusion. The story had suddenly taken a weird turn. “The DuPonts?”
Grahame smiled and nodded. “The DuPont company had just invented nylon. And they wanted to wipe out the competition from hemp when it came to making stuff like clothes.”
I sat there speechless.
“Never underestimate the devious nature of American capitalism,” said Grahame.
Grahame raised his glass, “To Sir Paul.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked as I downed my beer.
“You don’t know about what happened to Paul McCartney?” said Grahame.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“In 1980, Sir Paul was landing at Narita Airport for the “Wings” tour and he was busted with a half a pound of weed in his suitcase. He was almost sentenced to seven years or hard time, did nine days in jail, and was then deported. If they threw one of the Beatles into jail, what chance would we have?”
A few days later in Osaka I ran into a young American named Alex from Oregon who was working for a Japanese company developing Cloud-based applications. He explained to me that the harsh jail sentences for weed weren’t really a product of the Japanese thinking pot was something terrible. They didn’t think that at all. “It’s about the Japanese code of conduct. You simply don’t break the rules. Any rules. Large or small. And if you do, then you are not worthy and they throw your ass away for a very long time. In the old days, they just killed you.”
It all made perfect sense to me now. And it explained why we saw a Japanese couple standing at a crosswalk on an empty street in the Ginza section of Tokyo at five in the morning, waiting for the crossing light to turn green. It’s the law. Follow the law.
During my stay in Japan, I thought a lot about my conversations that night with Grahame and Alex.
And I learned there is a movement afoot in Japan to legalize medical weed for the terminally ill and old people. Japan has the oldest population on earth and pot would definitely ease the ailments of growing old. But so far, the Japanese government has shown no interest in loosening the screws.
Inna and I also stumbled onto several odd signs in Fuji in front of a canoe rental shop and some little stickers on light posts in Nara, supporting the use of pot. The winds of change are definitely blowing through Japan.
But believe it or not, even as an old hippie pothead, I think the drug laws in Japan are actually a good thing. The Japanese system works so well because everyone follows the rules. If they didn’t, the whole country would come apart at the seams. Without order, Japan would be total chaos. And let’s be honest, people on pot tend to march to their own beat and are not with the program. When all is said and done, Japan is really not a county where “whatever” is ever going to work very well.
