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Lite kort japansk historia
Här är en kort text om japans historia gällande marijuana, den ser väl ut som sveriges nästan. Skrevs av en japan jag mailat med. Skrev mer men det var inte sammanhängande och viktigt. Lite kul att veta om japans syn och historia på cannabis. Visste ingenting om det.
Här är en länk jag fick om lagarna där:
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/legal_library/jp/legal_library_1994-07-15_1994-35.htmlJapan actually was a VERY large cannabis cultivating nation before World War
2. The Cannabis crop was a very important money crop, and as far as we can
tell, has been deeply rooted into the culture since the beginning of true
civilization in Japan, about 2100years ago.Unfortunately, after WW2, the GHQ (American occupation in Japan) told the
Japanese government to create similar laws as the U.S. which banned
cannabis. As far as our research tells us, the Japanese government had
absolutely no idea why, but went ahead simply becuase American asked (told)
it to. However, since Japan has had a long farming relation with cannabis,
they included a clause that said you needed a license to grow the crop,
which basically created a loop-hole for farmers so they could continue the
growing of the crop.Back to tradition, many items in Japan were traditionally made out of
cannabis, or “Taima” (where “TAI” = “Big” and “Ma” is another pronunciation
of “Asa” which means “Hemp”) including the emperor’s official robes. (Back
centuries ago, the Emperor was a diety, a non-human god, so his sacred robes
must be made of a sacred crop.) Many items in the Shinto religion tradition
are also made out of cannabis, even today. (Ropes and so on.)
Traditionally, only those of high ranking that were rich were able to wear
cannabis robes. There is very little information on the use of cannabis as
a psychoactive drug in the history of Japan, but it is known from scrolls
that the Ninja did know of it’s psychoactive effects. One of the Ninja
scrolls that covers the effects of various plants, states “when one smokes
Taima, he becomes a fool”.Unfortunately, most of this knowledge has been lost today, and even most of
the Japanese will be shocked to know that such things are made of (shocker!)
Marijuana.Back to the “GHQ” days after World War 2, the Japanese police force didn’t
enforce the marijuana laws much back then. The reason was simple. No one
knew why the laws were there in the first place, so there was no reason to
enforce them. However, in the 60’s there was a rising movement of students
and young people who disagreed with the way the Japanese gov’t operated, and
seemed to be the “yes man” to America. This was during the Viet Nam war,
and was in a sense similar to the American hippie movement.Much the same as it was in the U.S., there was (minor) use of Marijuana too.
Not much at all by comparison, but it was there. The police force used
this as an excuse to arrest people, and this was the first time (and the
beginning of what we have today) the police actually started enforcing the
law.Like I had mentioned earlier, there is very little public information on
cannabis in Japan. Although things are starting to change a little bit at a
time, most of the public cannot tell the difference in effects between
marijuana and methamphetamines. They’re all “dangerous drugs” that will
mess up your life forever, and probably kill you, as far as the Ministry of
Health says.In the year 2003, there were over 2000 arrests for marijuana alone. This is
a rising trend, and reflects the rising use of marijuana (and decreasing use
of methamphetamines and other hard drugs) in Japan. (As a side note, I
don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but methamphetamines were
invented in Japan prior to World War 2, and were sold at drug stores to
increase productivity. To this day, Japan has the heaviest population of
methamphetamine abusers in the world.)So, there you have it. A quick history lesson on marijuana in Japan.