Gaijinass

It is widely accepted, lately more and more even by members of the conservative right, that Americas stance on drug’s and drug use is frankly, absurd. Gradually, the law seems to be moving more toward tolerance and moderation as opposed to the nonsensical and impossible even illogical “War on Drug’s” that has devoured billions of American tax dollars and has been used as a wonderful excuse for America injecting itself, rather painfully, into all sort’s of other sovereign nation’s affair’s. The point here is, even in the States, people are getting it together and states are beginning to slacken the strangle hold on cannabis and other drugs that honestly, are alot LESS harmful than say Alcohol cigarettes.

Enter Japan
Japan is, as far as I can tell, the most anal retentive country on the planet and I’ve been around the block a couple times.
This extreme conservatism is however, one of it’s most appealing features. That is untill we begin to discuss one of three things.

1. Immigration
2. Drug’s
3. Education

Today I am just addressing number 2, Drug’s.

Drug’s and the “abuse” of drug’s has been forefront in the Japanese media due to the arrest and detention and subsequent bail of Pop idol Noriko Sakai and her husband.
I will avoid rehashing all the in’s and outs (it’s all very silly and I can’t be bothered) and will simply give you a link for you to look at on your own if you so desire.
READ ABOUT THE SILLINESS

Noriko Sakai man….I feel bad for her. First of all, her thhusband ratted her out to the police. Originally the police had been under the impression that it was only Sakai’s husband that had been using stimulants but no no no, being a big man her stellar stand up husband decided to tell the police that Sakai in fact, was also a drug user.
Next, she went on to do this sort of half hearted, ridiculous Escape and Evade exercise disappearing for a few day’s. This was like chucking a liter of gasoline into the fireplace while your roasting marshmallows. It was just dumb. Burnt black sticky marshmallows all over mingling with charred flesh and hair. Not a good idea.
So anyway long story short she gets busted or rather turned her self in and blah blah blah 40 days in a detention center awaiting her bail hearing. Oh thats right folks SPEEDY TRIAL? NOPE! NOT IN JAPAN!
Frankly shes lucky she got bail. Bail in Japan is the exception, not the rule and you only get it if your famous, rich or both. Oh, and not a foreigner. Gaijin don’t get bail here, despite what your lawyer or anyone might tell you, no.

So all this trouble…for what? She wasn’t “high” or other wise “hopped up” on anything. despite a tattoo on her ankle and a colored streak in her hair a few years back nobody has ever mumbled the slightest complaint about Noriko Sakai but now….shes a dirty street hooker with a needle hanging out of her arm and a suspicious looking blister on her lip. It’s just pathetic.

Japan, has absurdly strict laws and brutal punishment’s for people involved in “Drugs”. It’s worthwhile to take a look at what the average Japanese person think’s about drug’s.
MAYAKU is the Japanese word for drug in the illegal sense, what westerners might call narcotics. The thing is, Mayaku comes from a root word meaning cannabis type drugs. But now everything has been lumped in together so although the average japanese person doesn’t know the difference between MDMA and crack, it’s all the same now. Weed being no exception.
I will not quote statistics or law books here but I know of one case, last year in which a japanese man, 26 year’s old was arrested for possession of 1 kilo of marijuana. He had no prior record and pleaded guilty to possession and was sentenced to 5 year’s incarceration with labor.
Another man I know was arrested about 6 year’s ago for using speed, injecting it. He was not caught possessing it but the cops found him suspect, detained him, did a urinalysis and found traces of stimulants in his body. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 2 years confinement with labor. That was his first arrest.

It seems to all be done in this attempt to persuade everyone that drug’s aren’t really IN Japan. That it’s not a Japanese problem and that it’s all the evil “gaijin” elements polluting this pure utopia which is the land of the rising sun.

BULLSHIT

I am tall, white, I wear glasses and I have never been stopped by the police, not even for a routine stop, whatever that is (read: harassment) yet I have had young Japanese people, men and women, wearing everything from casual jeans and t-shirts to business chique Hermes top end stop me at various places and ask me in round about way’s if I knew anyone that they could buy drug’s from.
Ive also encountered this online from people in communities like “Mixi”
Japan’s answer to “Whorespace”
and on skype.
I know some of you conspiracy theory gaikokutoroksyou holders are thinking “cops cops its a sting!” but no, most Japanese cops I know can’t even turn on a computer let alone solicit drug’s from an English speaker.
It’s more likely that in fact yes, the younger generation of Japanese people want to use drug’s, and who can blame them!
In a society so abstract and demanding yet increasingly without any clear direction’s to it’s youth yet clear demands on what they should achieve, drug’s seem like a wonderful way to chill out and get some peace.

Land of the rising Alcoholic

Alcohol is a powerful drug.
Tobacco is a POWERFUL DRUG.
These are both much more potent, powerful, mind altering and destructive than MANY MANY illegal narcotics and drug’s.

Again without going to stats and figures it’s clear.

Japan, a country in which women dressed like stripper’s are allowed to come into bars and give out FREE packs of cigarettes to customers or free shots of Yaggermeister, a country in which public drunkenness is a concept soooo far from punishable and a country in which a HUGE amount of the population are assuredly closet case alcoholics. For the love of god, Alcohol is the GLUE that hold’s large dangerously teetering facets of this society together. It is nothing other than nonsense and hypocritical turbo boost lack of logic that can perpetuate a system that tears Noriko Sakai’s life asunder yet let’s a 62 year old CEO and Yakuza family “Sumiyoshi Gumi” permanent fixture to get a new liver from a 15 year old Thai boy so he can drink Screw drivers at 9 AM again. Yes, I’m totally serious.

YOU
What do you need to know?

• don’t get caught with dope. It’ll suck for you.
• You can pull a “Leaving Las Vegas” and even come to work totally ripped and shitfaced out of your mind and people will try hard to make excuses and cover for you, even when your liver fails.
• If you do get caught with dope, say sorry over and over and over untill the wheels fall off. Don’t try to fight the case. You will lose.
• Drink a bottle of vodka and chain smoke on the train  during rush hour then bob and weave before you throw up all your “TGI Fridays” on the platform just because you can.  They will all call you a rude “gaijin” and they  will call the old salary man doing the same only puking up “yakiniku” and swilling Shochu a “kimoi oyaji” and they will call the drunk cute 27 year old office lady sprawled out on the train  seat after too many gin tonics with her skirt up around her waist and highschool boys snapping cell phone picks of her crotch and 3 construction workers, also shitfaced still popping one cups, trying to figure out how they can get her to the toilet, “Kawaisou” but NOBODY, NOBODY will ever call you what you are: an alcoholic…..even if they do, it’s probably just a joke and they will have a drink with you if you offer.