Dear JapanProbe moderators, I found a suspicious troll, flamer, hater, or racist!

So how do you feel about the reporters who were recently detained in North Korea?

Or about the Icelandic woman who was jailed in the US for having an expired tourist visa?

その態度は何もについて深くに考えてないことを示してるじゃないか？

If marijuana is addictive it’s psychological- like a “I need to be high to wash the dishes” kind of thing- it’s not physical. I’ve tried quitting cigarettes, and that is much harder. I am not a heavy drinker but I’ve heard that quitting drinking is much harder also.

I think that having such harsh rules against marijuana makes people have a biased view of it as being a serious drug, like speed, which was given out by the Japanese government during WWII. Marijuana is just an herb that makes you sit around and watch movies. “Taima”, which is hemp, with low THC levels, was burned during the Obon festival in Japan a long time ago, but has since been banned. The production of hemp is highly regulated, but exists in Japan for things like symbolic ropes used in “Shinto” shrines.

Speed (methamphetamine), or “shabu” is a synthetic chemical that was used to make people work day and night to produce Zeros and battleships. My grandfather talked about being encouraged to use it, which he refused, but there are still many people who are addicted to it. I doubt that the imperial government would have encouraged marijuana use, because it would have reduced their ability to wage a war- people would have been sitting around writing haiku and eating ramen. I don’t think speed and cannabis are the same thing, and cannabis should not be illegal anywhere.

Press club reporters had known about Nakagawa’s heavy drinking for years, but they didn’t report it because they thought it was a private issue. (And reporting about embarrassing things like that would hurt their relationship with a potential news source.)

I’ve seen a few media reports about the badness of public drunkeness in Shibuya and at beaches, but in general I’d say that marijuana use gets far more coverage as a “dangerous” drug.

Japan did have a problem with the late Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa being intoxicated at the G7 news conference.

There are limits. Even with alcohol.

According to the article by Nutt et al., cannabis indeed has lower potential than tobacco and alcohol with regard to physical harm and dependence. However, it seems to depend on each individuals, especially for person who is predisposed to psychosis, it can increase the risk.

The possibility of triggering off a psychosis is bad for me, since I already have a tendency of mental disorder. Fortunately, I have no interest on cannabis. Also, I can’t drink alcohol, already abstained smoking cigarettes, just a bit addicted to caffeine, no gambling, and nothing else, so I don’t mind so much if all drugs, including tobacco and alcohol, are banned. I’m boring person for some.

It is regretful that I could not have a chance for betrayal. You had not indicated that you are living in Japan, Rune.

Until then, there were hemp fields everywhere and nobody gave a damn because it was like that since Japanese history began.
My grandfather told me that in the pre-war era some students would go to Tama river after school to have a light puff laying by the river bed and people who saw this would just snicker at them (the domestic hemp has very low THC).

The Shinto religion upholds cannabis as the most holy of hollies and the Emperor must wear hemp for important rituals. There are places and important shrines with names that imply hemp everywhere. While it is banned to have possession and to harvest without a special license, there is no law to enforce against the consumption of cannabis in Japan.

If cannabis becomes unregulated today it would most likely become a corrupt industry like everything else, since there is no cultural integrity anymore.

Going back to the case of this principal, she simply broke the law thinking she could get away. Very smart for a school principal.

Oh, and another thing the GHQ really had there hand on is Dentsu. The virtual monopoly for Japanese mass-media sponsor.

New to the planet eh? Except for parts of Europe, no modern government dares divulge the “truth” about cannabis – it would break their money train which is fueled by their lies. Without drugs to blame, there would be WAY less need for cops, law enforcement agencies, lawyers, judges, jails, prisons, and all of those people/businesses that live off (leech) supplying those agencies with support and services.

If the government actually cared about you (or “the children”) it would have long ago outlawed alcohol and nicotine – two of the biggest poisons consumed by humans. If they cared even more – they’d outlaw McDonalds and Twinkies.

The whole Anti-Drug scheme is just an easy way for the governments to fund the entire legal/justice system without ever having to beg for money – all they do is cry “think of the children” and brain dead citizens who have long ago drank the “drugs are bad – they must be – that’s what the government told me to think” koolaid nod their heads and reach for their wallets.

It’s a shame the planet is once again turning into a few haves and a whole slew of have not sheeple who blindly follow without thought or true knowledge.

I have been smoking cannabis for 14 years now. I have been able to hold a job and am now attending university. I have a couple of friends who are doing post-doctorates and still smoke, many more who are graduate students or have their masters and either smoke or did smoke weed. I also know a few who have been jobless for years who smoke. Cannabis can have detrimental effects, it can trigger a psychosis, if you are allready disposed for having one that is. In that respect, cannabis is no different from alcohol.

I hope this helped.

To err is part of being human.

Yes it was careless, ill-conceived and all the rest, but to indicate that educators ‘must’ be more-than-human, once again deflects the responsibility from parents and caregivers onto educators as the ‘sole’ provider and benchmark for children.

It takes a village to bring up a child – not just ‘saintly’ (sic) teachers.

By the way, smuggling drugs (even small amounts) into a country is going to be a significant crime most anywhere. Don’t confuse possession with smuggling – the latter is a much more serious crime.

She could drink herself stupid morning, noon, and night and Japan wouldn’t say anything about it. Puff a joint once and awhile (and with a measly 6 grams – it’s obviously she and her husband are not big time pot heads) and it’s a big freaking deal.

Japans entire view on pot is stone age at best – especially when you look at the wide spread alcohol abuse that is blindly tolerated with nary a second thought.

At least in the US there’s a possibility you’ll get a fine and probation for something like this. In Japan, it seems a lot harsher than most places, like smoking a joint is equivalent to importing a kilo of heroin. I’m probably wrong, but I still wouldn’t chance it.

That being said, if (big if here) Japan ever legalizes, I’m moving the next day…

1. diplomatic, banking or executive children (pure blood foreigners, if I can use that term without causing offence)

2. “Haafu” children like my daughter.

3. pure Japanese with whose parents want them to have an international education.

These people ruined their lives for 5.9 grams of weed.. The stupidity.

She is a superb Principal and it is a real shame she has got caught this way.

I expect the school will have to dismiss her.

I, on the other hand, have no sympathies. If a person breaks a law of a country, then he/she must pay the consequences. What happens in other countries is absolutely irrelevant. They should know better.

I do give her credit though for being truthful instead of playing the ‘foreigner card,’ where a person blames it on the usual “it was planted on me, I’m innocent” routine.

I’m sure all the salarymen as they stumble home in their nightly drunken stupor will approve of the arrest.