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Japan's culture is a double edged sword. The very same phenomenon that allows you to have politeness-by-default and lots of dedication to professionalism is the same mechanism by which you get glacial paces of change when the culture settled into the wrong ideology. There are lots of more downsides (lots of flipped-coin situations), but this is just one of them.

Japan is much less likely to change rapidly on this front than any other society, in my opinion changing attitudes everywhere else is what will convince Japan. One thing I could see is them legalizing marijuana but taxing is incredibly (as a way to offset some long-term economics issues), but I don't know of a single politician willing to be that progressive (and not lose backing)... That's not what "progressive" looks like here really.

That's really interesting. What other flipped-coin situations do you notice?
Going to go with the unpopular opinion here, but I don't understand the comments saying "Japan/Korea is so backwards/archaic, cannabis tobacco and alcohol are all drugs, if you allow one, you should allow them all".

In the US/Europe, I totally agree with you. The benefits of making it legal far exceed the cost and the associated risks, so if I was asked to vote, I would vote for legalizing cannabis. But this is not a vote to cannabis, it's a vote against the criminal networks that are profiting from cannabis.

Now, what you are saying, is that a country that does not have a cannabis problem should still legalize it. Call me old fashioned, but I do not think that a society that smokes weed is better than a society that does not. Saying "yes, but alcohol/tobacco is worst" does not make is good.

Your point basically is: "these countries should allow weed because in the West, we do have an issue with the criminality associated with it". I believe on the contrary that Japan, Korea (and a few others, such as Singapore) should be very proud of not having a drug problem, keep one working towards not creating one, while at the same time focusing on solving their tobacco / alcohol one.

> Call me old fashioned

No, its not really a matter of being old fashioned - it's a matter of being authoritarian.

> but I do not think that a society that smokes weed is better than a society that does not.

The society that doesn't forbid people who want to smoke to do so is better because it is more free. That is valuable in itself, although this point seems to have fallen out of fashion on HN these days.

Do you really think it's ethical to use violence against people who consume a certain plant or substance merely because they happen to live in a culture that doesn't approve of that?

To me it seems extremely likely that drugs and their legalization will ultimately be put in the same category as the legalization of homosexuality or the freedom of speech

1) Drug problems still exist in those countries. Albeit it’s different than say, the US, pretending that it doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

2) I’m not saying the attitude toward weed in japan should be the same as in the US, but having this amount of social stigma is ridiculous. It’s absurd when you consider just how much Koreans and Japanese people drink. It’s way more than Americans, and at least in Korea it’s mandatory after work for a lot of people.

3) Legalizing marijuana (even just for medical use) will not create or worsen any existing drug issues.

Okay, I will call you old-fashioned. These things exist, and you cannot bury your head in the sand.

Do you know what happens when cannabis is illegal and people decide to skirt that? People synthesize technically-legal alternatives, and give them acronyms like 'JWH', and sell them online.

It may not seem too harmful, making the products of public research on the effects of cannabinoids on rodents available to the public. But the legislatures will catch on eventually, because it is a clear end-run around the law, right?

Fast-forward a few years, and look at all the harm that this causes; it's like heroin -> fentanyl. What is wrong with the principles of harm reduction?

You're not "old-fashioned", that's far too nice a word for someone who endorses violence and incarceration for people who like a drug that you disapprove of.
I agree with you if that means anything to you. The fact that drug problems in a country like Japan are far diminished relative to a country like the US means, in my mind, that the culture should attempt to maintain that purity, which can only be reasonably done by preventing people from partaking.

Take fast food for instance. The Americanization of the Japanese diet is leading to increased obesity in what used to be a very healthy society. It is the mere exposure of these addictive foods that has lead to this. Honestly, it makes me a bit sad.

Living in Korea, it's just baffling to see these ridiculous, archaic attitudes toward marijuana in Korea and Japan.

It's like stepping into a time machine. The internet and its resources are available, yet no amount of reasoning or information gets through to a lot of people. Marijuana is just "evil" or only "people who commit/will commit crimes" use it.

I don't necessarily think the attitude here should be just like in the US, but at least let people use it medically, and get rid of the disproportionate stigma.

As @laureig mentioned, one can’t even admit trying marijuana in polite/semi-polite company (of other Koreans). With foreigners it’s a little different. Generally it only gets discussed if you’re closer with them.

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At the same time, alcohol [and alcoholism] is not only totally fine, it's encouraged! Sometimes it's even mandatory to go drinking with your coworkers after work, due to social pressure from peers and bosses. I have spoken with a few people like this.

But going to clubs in 홍대 Hongdae/강남 Gangnam and drinking until 9am or drinking at a dozen bars in Golden Gai until 6am is totally fine. Drinking until you puke on the street is totally fine. (Admittedly I did do this once in 세종시 Sejong-City, Korea)

> The internet and its resources are available, yet no amount of reasoning or information gets through to a lot of people.

This is a "normal" thing, there was a HN article about it some weeks back: often if someone has their mind made up about something, often no amount of facts, figures, logic and proof will change their minds. They may even see these things as personal attacks. Facts are, sadly, not an effective way to convince people.

I'm currently reading the book "Never split the difference" by Chris Voss, a book on negotiation by a former FBI hostage negotiator. In it, he talks at length about why traditional negotiation techniques don't work: they assume that both sides are rational and can be persuaded through facts and value propositions. People aren't rational, they're emotional and to get through to someone, you need to get through to their emotional mind. The book then talks about different techniques he's used to do this, but the fundamental foundation seems to be to listen to what the other person is saying -- really, really listen -- and put yourself into their emotional shoes so you can understand not just what emotion they're feeling, but also why. He then uses rather simple techniques: he verbalises the emotions he thinks their feeling and the reasons. This forces the other person to acknowledge them (or correct him if he got it wrong), which has a calming effect, provides you with more information to work with and often makes the person realise if they're being unreasonable. That's only one technique used, of course, but you can see how he's not trying to engage their logical factual minds, but rather find a way to put out the emotional fires going on in the persons mind.

I think these same principles apply when trying to convince someone of anything. If they have an emotional stake in the debate, then facts and logic aren't going to cut it, but talking to their emotions hostage-negotiator-style just might.

Not just that: in Korea, if you're drunk and punch/stab/rape someone, and you claim you were drunk, you may get a reduced sentence, because you were clearly too drunk to be responsible for your action. (Never mind nobody forced you to drink.)

At least more and more younger generation seem to be against the drinking culture. (Unfortunately, they still agree with older generation on marijuana...)

I'm not sure if it's still true, but North Korea used to be one of the few countries which had not outlawed cannabis.

Apparently it has a very strong root structure and they had a lot of problems with soil erosion, especially along railway lines.

It sure is amazing how different perspectives influence decision-making.

Incidentally, if anyone is interested in the country's history between WWII and Kim Jong-Un, check out Under the Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty by Bradley K. Martin if you want a dry but deep history, or Nothing to Envy: Oridinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick for a more narrative account.

> Living in Korea, it's just baffling to see these ridiculous, archaic attitudes toward marijuana in Korea and Japan.

It's an East Asian cultural aversion to drug culture that has roots in how opium was used to dominate China.

OTOH Japanese love medicines; doctors give out pills that are strongly regulated overseas like rohypnol like candies. CBD oil is completely legal OTC

As a European I think the Second Amendment in the US is archaic. People stopped walking around with weapons in public 150 years ago.

There are historical reasons for these harsh penalties. Japan saw what happened to China in the opium wars.

It was definitely surprising to me to see grown men in suits throwing up on the streets nearly every one of the seven nights I spent in Tokyo. I don’t recall seeing any of that in the three nights I spent in Kyoto but having said that I didn’t have many late nights there.

I’ll add that the attitude towards things like stimulants that help people with ADD/ADHD is also a bit bizarre to me.

a few random uninformed thoughts

1. drinking culture

AFAICT drinking culture is fairly different in Japan than in at least the USA. In the USA drinking leads to fights and violence. In Japan that seems far less so. Drinking and getting drunk in Japan doesn't have the stigma it has in the USA because it doesn't lead to the same issues? Include drunk driving in that since few people drive

2. attitudes toward drugs

SF is falling apart. I know you can argue the two are not related, SF falling apart and SF being one of the most drug friendly cities but I'm sure the Japanese don't find it quite so easy to separate those 2 things. I'm not 100% sure I can. Like many of the things that seems at least mildly related. The lower violent crime. The lower theft rates. The more respect for the commons (less trashing public things). For whatever wrong headed reason I find drug culture and trashing things related.

You can blame the US occupation for these laws, they didn't exist prior to 1945 when Cannabis was a part of Korean and Japanese traditional culture.
Such attitudes are still quite prevalent in most US states and at the federal level, especially with former attorney general sessions. Archaic indeed, but hardly unique or surprising.
What's more baffling is that it's totally acceptable to be an alcoholic and in a lot of workplaces it can be seen as negative to not participate in heavy drinking events.
Not only that but Japan encourages alcohol consumption while enjoying the highest rate of stomach cancer along with Korea in the whole world. You have to wonder what the government is thinking, or how much corrupt politicians are.
It’s the association of marijuana with laziness/lack of ambition, which is a cardinal sin in Asian culture.
Comparing literally any index of social dysfunction; crime, divorce, homelessness, mental illness rates: no Westerner has any right to lecture Japan (or South Korea) on how they run their country no matter how many "muh weed" articles they can find on the internet.
To each their own. I support that.

It's quite possibility that they too find it baffling to see the ridiculous attitude that and some western country have toward marijuana.

They have every right to decide for themselves to make marijuana "evil", whatever the reason is.

So just because alcohol is bad we should encourage other substances that also have an effect on people’s ability to think clearly and have additive properties? Instead of discouraging the culture of drinking? Regardless of what westerners think of as “ridiculous” drug laws, Japan, Korea and other Asian countries with “ridiculous” drug laws do have way lower rate of drug addiction and abuse. That is no coincident.
In my experience more people than you might expect have experience with cannabis in Japan. I was at a small party and the topic of cannabis came up. I asked the group if anyone had smoked it before. Everyone gave a resounding "No, of course not".

When the party was winding down, two separate people said "Actually, I've tried it. I just didn't want to say anything in front of other people."

I find it strange how in the next few weeks up and down the country Japanese people will go out and many will get very drunk from morning to night while sitting under the blooming sakura trees but any other drug is so taboo you can barely mention it in polite company.

Yeah, I totally forgot about the polite company thing. It’s exactly the same with Koreans. The ones who were forward about it were people who had lived in America or abroad for some period of time, typically.

In the same way you shouldn’t ask a group of Koreans “do you understand?” when teaching, because they might answer “yes” to save face.

It’s definitely an interesting culture, compared to mine (American).

Not sure what exactly you're referring to; most people don't refer to illegal drug abuse openly in polite company here in America either. Of course, it's also impolite to ask.
No matter how much or what kind of drugs are being used, it's not logical to ever wage a drug war. This is probably the sickest, most disgusting American cultural export in a sea of sick, disgusting cultural exports. It's one thing to succumb to this type of sick, vile thinking when a country is under occupation but a whole other thing to keep at it once you are no longer occupied. In no way am I singling out Japan here. Most countries succumbed to US pressure on this issue and even made it their own issue, persecuting and killing their own people. The people who perpetrated these acts, acts akin to war crimes themselves should be ashamed and hunted down but that won't happen because justice doesn't exist. It is not too late to reverse such policies and to shirk off this horrific cultural export as even the US is starting to do. Unfortunately, many of these people ardently believe the lies they learned and want to continue killing, jailing, torturing, and persecuting others who are sick and would be better off served with compassion and medical care. Hopefully, the world will wise up and get rid of this drug war, this American mind poison, and reclaim their cultures and dignity for their countries.
According to the CDC-

Drug overdose deaths continue to increase in the United States

From 1999 to 2017, more than 700,000 people have died from a drug overdose

Around 68% of the more than 70,200 drug overdose deaths in 2017 involved an opioid

In 2017, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids (including prescription opioids and illegal opioids like heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl) was 6 times higher than in 1999

On average, 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose

https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html

Government spends billions waging war on marijuana while Purdue Pharma, Pill Mills, and The FDA kill the rest of us with Oxycontin

The LD50 for cannabinoids is approximately your own weight. At least in the monkeys and rats studied, because there has never been a documented human overdose and proper studies are both unethical and (in the US) illegal.
Those numbers don't include alcohol or tobacco deaths, which are staggering in comparison
It's amazing to me how Japan can be so Puritan about some things, and so... not Puritan about other things. Though I guess an outsider could say the same thing about the U.S.
I would be more surprised to find any longstanding human culture that didn't have any glaring inconsistencies in the things it encourages vs the things it discourages.

We are all hypocrites.

I think a lot of these things boil down to demographics. What societies make the most dynamic changes in the shortest times? My theory is that it's ones with large-base demographic pyramids. Once you become vertical or inverted (like Japan a couple decades ago, the US and most of europe, China soon) you start to become more conservative as a society. Things change more slowly, maybe not directly in terms of politics (meaning things may not swing far right) but in terms of the actual look and feel of society.
Its funny that weed so bad but mushrooms were legal there until 2002
Japan has other surprise drug policies. For example, the prescription drug Adderall is banned because it contains amphetamine. https://jp.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/doctors/import...

This article is enlightening in Japan's attitude towards these stimulants. But I could go any convenience store and pick up bottles of "genki" (energy) drinks. There doesn't seem to be much regulations and only the occasional news story of people overdosing.

Why exactly did the US go so crazy against drugs? Seems like after WWII this war on drugs mentality took root and probably peaked in the 1980s or so with the peak of the WWII generation's power.
I have an interesting personal anecdote on this. I'm a 27-year-old Caucasian American (relevant) who doesn't speak any Japanese and who recently spent 3 months in Japan with my girlfriend.

Her aunt by adoption is an ethnically Japanese native of Tokyo who of course speaks fluent Japanese, and we spent a month living with her there.

At one point, we went over her aunt's friend's family's house for dinner. The friend's family does not speak any English.

All night we managed to have a really interesting and fun time by using Google translate to translate what I wanted to say (my gf mostly just spectated), and Google translate would horribly mistranslate it to humorous and confusing effect, and then Yuka (the aunt) would explain to the family what I actually meant with a proper translation.

Now in the middle of dinner, after a good hour of this and now at a stage where we had mostly set google translate aside, it came up that I don't drink alcohol, and the father commented how much money I must save this way. And I, fool that I am, joked "oh no I blow all the savings on cocaine." And I looked at Yuka, who chuckled and said "no, no, I'm not going to translate that." But she didn't add any cultural warning, so I thought she was just being a little formal. So I said, "fine I'll translate it with google translate!"

Now sure, you might say it was a bad joke, but in the US depending who you're eating with it would still elicit chuckles or smiles, even if it was just polite.

Not in Japan. When I held up the phone with the translation for them to see, the reaction was shocked silence. It was as though I had held up an image of hardcore pornography at the table. Even the two high school age boys were horrified, not so much as a smile.

After a moment the father muttered in halting English "bad joke."

And that is how I learned just how taboo drugs are in Japan.

In retrospect Yuka found it hilarious. "I told you not to say it!" "No you didn't, you just said you wouldn't translate it, that's not the same thing!" "Ha ha well..."

It's worth noting that this article is by Johann Hari, who has a long history of telling compelling but untrue stories. Most recently about depression:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2018/jan/...

EDIT and the backstory:

http://www.jeremy-duns.com/blog/2014/9/7/kdgwxcbsned1rknh0h3...

He mentions Rat Park, which isn't as clear-cut as he makes out:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/25/against-rat-park/

I think it's wise to treat this story as a useful pointer towards an interesting topic, but not as a reliable treatment of that topic.

Recent interviews with Japanese activists on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmrDAXjcUXY
Question: what is the stance about nootropics in Japan?
> I was told by Jake Adelstein, one of the leading experts on drugs and crime in Japan, and the author of the book Tokyo Vice.

He must be _really_ good to rank above all the experts who are from Japan.

OTOH, while Japan may have failed to produce leading experts on drugs and crime in Japan, they seem to be doing pretty decently in terms of actual drug and crime issues. If you were Japanese, would you want to follow American advice on drug and crime policy? There are many good things about America, but would you say its drug and crime situations are the highlights worth imitating?

Does the US really have harsh drug laws compared to other countries? Doesn't seem like it to me.

I also don't believe that other countries are harsh on drugs just because the US or UN is. Doesn't seem to be a primary driver.

I think it's much simpler. Most societies are very anti drug.

"advanced democracy". Oh the lies we tell one another.