Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Japan

Looking at Japan, with its incredible work culture of putting in long hours, the withdrawal of growing numbers of younger people from the mainstream way of life and the rapidly aging Japanese population, one can say that the legalization of cannabis for recreational use will vastly benefit Japanese society. It would help cut down fatigue, anxiety and stress, help people relax, reduce the dependency on technology and possibly ignite creative thinking in a number of areas of sustainable living. For a country that was at the receiving end of devastating nuclear destruction, the cannabis plant could be the perfect herb to heal the trauma of that event and to forget any unpleasantness that lingers from the past. It can be the medicine that weeds out any seeds of world dominion through economic and military means that may still be nurtured in the Japanese mind.

Cannabis has been a part of Japan's cultural traditions from ancient times. It has been known for its medicinal, recreational and spiritual properties and is still used among a number of people who understand the herb. Modern Japan has, however, in the process of advancing technologically and mirroring the US, replaced the magical herb with modern pharmaceuticals and dangerous synthetic drugs.

Japan has, in the last 80 years or so, gone overboard in its quest to be a world leader in terms of economics and industry. I say overboard because even though Japanese technology is synonymous with quality, that measure of quality has expanded as humans have increased their knowledge of the world. Quality and technical excellence must now contain the key element of sustainability as the world stands on the brink of man-made extinction through the blind use of synthetics to achieve developmental goals. The single minded focus on technical brilliance without being rooted in the natural world has resulted in a sort of virtual reality in Japan. It is true that a large part of Japan is covered with forests which is commendable. It is also true that Japan opposes the legalization of cannabis, the most potent natural medicine in the history of mankind.

Maybe its the vast elderly population that still buys into the US propaganda against cannabis even as the US legalizes it state by state. Maybe its the powerful Japanese pharma industry that has built its foundation on opium that sees cannabis as a threat. Maybe its the methamphetamine cartels that operate close to and possibly within Japan that view cannabis as competition. Whatever the reason, in many ways Japan has mirrored the regressive nature of countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, China and the Philippines even as it tries to project itself as the US of the east. Progressive and liberal thinking appears to be on the decline and the increasing military ambitions of the nation provide an insight into the thinking that led it to take the path of war some decades ago.

An UN expert committee had reviewed cannabis related recent scientific findings in 2019 and made recommendations to remove cannabis from the UN's most restrictive Schedule 4 list of banned substances. The meeting to vote on the findings of the committee came up in May 2019. Japan was one of the nations, along with the US, Germany and Russia that asked for a postponement on the vote to legalize cannabis in the UN. This pushed the vote to 2020 which meant that millions of people the world over would continue to be deprived of cannabis' medical and recreational properties, millions would continue to languish in jail and face law enforcement action and the plant would continue to be destroyed wherever it is found. People everywhere would in the meantime get more deeply addicted to pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, alcohol, tobacco and arms. The young, the sick, the elderly, women, the poor, the minorities and the indigenous communities of the world would continue to face suffering and oppression because of cannabis prohibition.

When the meeting to review cannabis scheduling came up again in March 2020 at the UN, Japan once again asked for a postponement, along with regressive nations such as China, Russia and Singapore. According to a report by MJBizDaily, 'Japan said “the unity of all member states working against drugs would be the most important thing to keep,” welcoming the postponement'. This stance reeks of a bias towards Japan's large industries, especially its pharmaceutical giants, and a total lack of concern for the health of global humanity, the state of the environment and the current state of reality.

Japan must step up and support cannabis legalization in the UN, to recognize its responsibility to contribute to a better and more sustainable world and not look to further only its own selfish interests much like the nation it seems to be trying to emulate all the time, the federal US. It must recognize that the cannabis plant is one of nature's most precious gifts to mankind, possibly one of the few last hopes left for mankind to save the planet from man-made destruction. It must use its considerable influence to change the world wide stigma against cannabis. It must do the right thing by its people by legalizing cannabis for recreational use within its boundaries and the right thing by the people of the world by supporting worldwide legalization of cannabis for recreational use.

Cannabis could be the path that the Japanese use to find their balance with nature, a balance which the whole world is looking for within itself. With our unsustainable ways of living taking us only faster towards worldwide extinction, a revival of a proven old way of thinking and living, one of the best as the long history of cannabis and man's association with it shows. We are in a world where all options need to be considered and explored and cannabis is an option that has time-tested safety and reliability. The re-introduction of cannabis into Japanese economy, technology, culture, medicine, research, industry, agriculture, wellness and tourism will inject sustainability into Japan's further development. Cannabis can save the planet from nuclear and technological destruction in the most peaceful and pleasurable way that only Mother Nature can devise.

In December 2020, the UN voted to remove cannabis from its most restricted Schedule IV category of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. It does however still remain in Schedule I, which is the least restrictive. This one move by the UN itself should be sufficient to bring about the recreational legalization of cannabis in every nation and an overhaul of national drug laws.

It must be noted that in most places where cannabis legalization has happened it took the efforts of the people who mobilized themselves through grassroots level movements to bring about this change. Left to lawmakers legalization would have been impossible, as the main interests of lawmakers concern the protection of the big industries opposed to cannabis such as pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, medical, alcohol and tobacco. For something that truly benefits the people, the people themselves have had to make the change.

Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.

'The main countries importing opium in 2018 were Japan (36 tons, or 67.3 per cent) followed by France (11.1 tons, or 20.7 per cent) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (5 tons, or 9.3 per cent). The United States, which had been the main importer of opium, reported the import of only a negligible amount of opium from India in 2018.'
https://www.incb.org/documents/Narcotic-Drugs/Technical-Publications/2019/Narcotic_Drugs_Technical_Publication_2019_web.pdf

'The United States, for example, has been reported by other countries as a country of departure of methamphetamine for Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), Asia (Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China and Mongolia) and Europe (Ireland). Moreover, methamphetamine trafficking has been reported not only from Mexico or from Canada into the United States but also from the United States to those two countries, suggesting a number of two-way trafficking flows across the countries of North America. Methamphetamine trafficked from Canada has been reported in the United States, South America (Chile), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) and a few countries in Europe (Iceland and Latvia).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia increased eightfold over the period 2009–2018, to close to 100 tons, and preliminary data for 2019 show further strong increases in the quantities of methamphetamine seized, in particular in South-East Asia, with increases reported in 2019 by, among other countries, Brunei Daraussalam, Cambodia. Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam. In most years in the past decade the largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia were reported by China. In 2018, by contrast, 66 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in that subregion was seized in Thailand, followed by Indonesia (8 per cent) and Malaysia (8 per cent) and only then by China (6 per cent), reflecting underlying shifts in the methamphetamine market in South-East Asia, that is, a decline in the methamphetamine market in China in parallel with ongoing increases in the ASEAN countries.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

Cannabis and the Medical Industry

https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/11/cannabis-and-medical-industry.html

With no scientific basis global drug laws are invalid
https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/06/with-no-scientific-basis-global-drug.html

A Look At The NDPS Act 1985 From A Cannabis Perspective
https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-look-at-ndps-act-1985-from-cannabis.html

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Cannabis and Japan

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