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Methamphetamine Solution: Drugs and the Reconstruction of Nation in Postwar Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2013

Miriam Kingsberg
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Abstract

This article introduces the 1952–56 hiropon crisis, Japan's sole major domestic experience with illegal drugs, and the world's first methamphetamine “epidemic.” In the early postwar years, hiropon addiction came to symbolize the dependent, traumatized state of a defeated Japan. This ideological significance made the eradication of hiropon a leading public issue, mobilizing the Japanese government, medical establishment, and social actors such as educators, parents, neighborhood associations, the media, and others. The process of eliminating methamphetamine restored public confidence and agency, and created a new identity for Japan as a cosmopolitan, independent nation. Unlike drugs in other contexts, hiropon was not embedded in the postwar political economy or culture, making possible its swift suppression. However, resolution of the methamphetamine crisis also sowed the seeds of its recrudescence in the 1970s. The ongoing “second stimulants epidemic,” reflecting consumption patterns typical of developed nations, has proven resistant to solution.

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Research Article
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 141 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2013

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