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The Secret History of Cannabis in Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Jon Mitchell
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Today Japan has some of the strictest anticannabis laws in the world.

Punishment for possession is a maximum 5 years behind bars and illicit growers face 7-year sentences. Annually around 2000 people fall foul of these laws - their names splashed on the nightly news and their careers ruined forever. The same prohibition that dishes out these punishments also bans research into medical marijuana, forcing Japanese scientists overseas to conduct their studies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 49 , December 2014 , e1
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014

References

Notes

1 Two of the best Japanese texts on the nation's cannabis history are Nagayoshi Hideo, Taima Nyuumon (An Introduction to Cannabis), Gentosha, 2009 and Funai Yukio, Akuhou! Taima Torishimarihou no Shinjitsu (Bad Law! The Truth Behind the Cannabis Control Act), Business Sha, 2012. Although not updated since 2010, the most detailed English website about cannabis in Japan is at taima.org accessible here.

2 For more information on the museum, see here. For a Japanese interview with Takayasu about the origins of the museum, see here.

3 For more details about the religious role of cannabis in Japan, see here.

4 For the text of the UN report, see here; for the THC levels in the 1970s, see for example here.

5 CBC News, “Japan stuffs magic mushroom loophole”, May 14 2002. Available here.

6 Sydney Morning Herald, “Japanese jail bugged by marijuana plants”, August 29 2007. Available here.