• TheFrirish@jlai.lu
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    7 days ago

    but getting blind drunk in the street every night for them is fine. Ridiculous.

    • xenoclast@lemmy.world
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      Like smoking, alcohol is a huge industry in Japan. It’s “normal” for Japanese companies to addict their employees to their products and because the companies ARE the government, they enact incredibly protectionist laws like this to prevent external competition.

      Their economy depends on it. It’s super gross. Like America and guns, or Sweden and flatpak furniture (the last one is a half joke)

      If Japan starts being a cannabis producer, they’ll 180 so fast you’ll get vertigo.

    • ngwoo@lemmy.world
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      I was shocked at how often you just see people laying passed out on the sidewalk or sleeping on a bench. Japan is an insanely different place after the bars start closing. Was genuinely uneasy with how many people everywhere just had zero control of themselves.

    • socsa@piefed.social
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      7 days ago

      There’s a reason why countries with proper transit infrastructure view alcoholism as a novelty.

      • Trailblazing Braille Taser@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

        I’m honestly not sure what you’re saying. Countries like the US with poor public transit infrastructure think alcoholism is serious solely because of people who drink and drive?

    • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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      Honestly, i think the reason is that just the right amount of alcohol dependency is amazing for capitalism. Dont get me wrong, I’m not judging anyone. I understand and I enjoy a drink myself. I just think we need to be honest with ourselves about it.

      It keeps you consuming and it makes you forget all the bullshit you had to put up with all day. It dulls your your problem solving, your creativity and (most importantly) your empathy, so supervisors, middle managers, department managers and execs are less disinclined not to beat down on those below them.

      I’m not saying its some grand conspiracy. I’m saying, those in power have known exactly the right drugs to administer to the masses in order to placate them. The Romans knew to give wine and not cannabis. The British army knew to give rum & brandy but not weed.

      In fact, all of them were legal. Then, capitalism really took off and, totally unrelated in sure, every drug other than alcohol suddenly became illegal.

  • scarabic@lemmy.world
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    I work at a company that has big offices in Japan and the US (as well as many other places) and it’s pretty interesting to see the contrasts in living standards and expectations up close.

    On the one hand, when coworkers visit from Japan they are disgusted by how dirty, unsafe, and uncourteous the US is by comparison. They complain endlessly about the low quality standards of the food. I picture myself having to pick worms and hair out of everything and that’s what things seem like from their perspective.

    But then some of them move to the US because they can’t handle the stuffy, oppressive attitude in Japan. Everything is about what you can’t do or aren’t supposed to do. One guy said he was so relieved to go to the US where people know how to say “we can find a way to do that.”

    • Zementid@feddit.nl
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      From your description alone, knowing only the US and not Japan, it sounds like Europe is the middle ground. Not as free, but less socially oppressive. I mean, in Japan it’s mean to walk while you eat… how deep is the interference running?

      Edit: Am from Europe, sorry should have added this.

      • cmhe@lemmy.world
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        There are two kinds of freedom, negative and positive liberty. US has a lot of negative liberties, they dictate little in what you can or cannot do, but is lacking in positive liberty, they don’t support you very well to do what you want to do.

        While Europe might have less negative liberty, their generally better social welfare system grants people more positive freedom.

        • xenspidey@lemmy.zip
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          5 days ago

          Yes the Bill of Rights are specifically what the government can not do to / take away from you. They are individual rights and liberties.

  • Skates@feddit.nl
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    7 days ago

    Part of the world: takes a step forward

    Japan: not on my fucking watch

  • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    Wasn’t it already illegal. My wife’s cousin served two years for an amount that is so small police wouldn’t even bother to confiscate it in europe.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      Yeah, it’s news to me that it wasn’t technically illegal. They still believe in the reefer madness shit and act like it.

  • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    While the possession and cultivation of marijuana are already banned in Japan, the country will prohibit its use as well, setting a prison sentence of up to seven years for violation.

    Ok, so that clears that up.

  • irotsoma@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    The pant is illegal because it’s cheap to grow yourself, but if you let some drug companies make money off of processing it, then it’s perfectly fine to use…

    • x00za@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 days ago

      “A plant known for opening the mind and making you question things? That’s illegal.”

        • Laser@feddit.org
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          Weed makes you question if you should get more snacks

          I haven’t tried it in a really long time though but I didn’t really like it very much. Not that I think it’s bad, but it’s a downer and they’re just not my favorite.

          Acid and 2C-B on the other hand, man. Haven’t tried other psychs unfortunately but I find them both great for their individual effects. Unfortunately, there’s the huge stigma around psychs in general plus the naturalistic crowd that makes up a proportion of psych users will only accept stuff like shrooms, peyote and ayahuasca.

      • agelord@lemmy.world
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        Could you please elaborate on how it “opens” your mind and makes you question things?

        • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          As a teen, the main question I had was, “can I make a pipe out of this?”.

          Now that I’m old, the question is mostly “why the hell is this still illegal on a federal level?”

        • KrankyKong@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          It’s hard to explain. At least for me, it helps me see things from another perspective. I work in web dev, and one of my favorite activities is to smoke a little bit, then work on my side projects. Some of my best work has come from my hyper focused, high, programming sessions.

          Weed really kinda follows you wherever you take it. If you wanna veg out on the couch and watch TV, it’ll facilitate that for you. If you wanna go down a research rabbit hole on some obscure topic, it’ll facilitate that just fine too.

  • DMCMNFIBFFF@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    1a. It’s a relatively small incentive to get people to emigrate, particularly the young.

    2b. wp:Cannabis in China

    (my bold)

    In 1985, the People’s Republic of China joined the Convention on Psychotropic Substances and identified marijuana as a dangerous narcotic drug, and illegal to possess or use it. The penalty for marijuana possession in China is disputed from various sources, but according to the Law on Public Security Administration Punishments, marijuana smokers shall be detained for 10 to 15 days and fined a maximum of 2,000 yuan.[16][17] However, the cultivation of cannabis for industrial purposes (hemp) has never been prohibited in China.[1]

    On another hand, cannabis seeds have been continuously listed in the Chinese Pharmacopeia[18] and hemp has never been prohibited in the history of the country.[19]

  • rustyfish@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    A population that old and conservative loves shit like that. Also, the government urging young people to instead drink more alcohol sounds like something straight out of the Soviet Unions playbook.

    • x00za@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 days ago

      I have a friend who moved from the UK to South Korea. He says that drugs is extremely illegal so everybody just gets totally wasted on alcohol there and that that’s extremely normalized.

    • tiredofsametab@fedia.io
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      We definitely have issues with alcoholism here. I think part of it is that a ton of small businesses (as well as larger ones) are ones that survive on alcohol revenue. I remember when I lived in the US, a lot of bars and breweries would fight legalization claiming it would hurt their business. I think they are stuck in the mindset that no one will leave the house or something, but that’s just speculation on my part.

    • gencha@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Drunk people might accidentally get pregnant and help with the population. Really an obvious move

    • systemglitch@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Alcohol leads to fucking and they need more babies. From a logic perspective it makes perfect sense.

      No one smokes weed then gets overly horny.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        The original propaganda against weed, called Reefer Madness, was all about how black men would smoke weed and then literally couldn’t stop themselves from raping white women because they got so horny.

        (I guess I have to point out that of course that isn’t true)

        • Frog@lemmy.ca
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          5 days ago

          Yes.

          Also alcohol is a depressant. That’s how “whiskey dick” happens.

          Also alcohol is leading cause of overdose. How are more dead people going to make babies?

          • HandBash@lemmy.world
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            It would be hard to quantify the effect but you also have the alcohol induces risky behavior aspect that would lead to more births though. Somewhat balancing your impotence and toxicology effects at least. Overall probably still a net negative.

        • griD@feddit.org
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          7 days ago

          Indeed, especially for women in my limited experience. Hmm, do I want to really commit SuicideByWords by mentioning a small sample size?

      • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Man, high sex is so good though. For me, it’s like I get tunnel vision around the sensuality, enveloped by sexual desire, where the only thing that exists is my partner, and for that time we are purely sexual beings. Every touch elicits goosebumps, every nerve at attention, like my entire body is a sexual organ in the throes of hedonistic pleasure. I never feel more connected to my partner, and for some reason it also lends itself really well to aftercare; like, once we’ve cleaned up and/or caught our breath, I just want to cuddle and continue to feel the safety and comfort of their warmth.

        Truly the best kind of sex imo

      • rustyfish@lemmy.world
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        I can only talk for myself but never in my life did I have sex more crazy, borderline fucked up, as that one time me and my partner smoked weed before jumping in the sheets.

        Alcohol on the other hand turns me into a useless sack of meat. Literally the end times for any boner of mine.

      • limonfiesta@lemmy.world
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        If alcohol consumption fixed declining birth rates, Japan wouldn’t have an aging population and Russia wouldn’t have been facing a demographic collapse even before the Ukraine invasion.

        This isn’t about boosting sex, it’s about being a conservative policy counterweight to opening the door to legalizing medicines derived from cannabis.

        My guess is that it’s a result of an internal NJP compromise between center right and hard right factions: only agreeing to allow liberalized medical cannabis policy, if the law also increased the scope of, and penalties for, recreational uses.

        But that’s just my assumption based on my limited understanding of Japan’s post-war uniparty government.

      • Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de
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        7 days ago

        I wouldn’t be so sure about that… Sex on psychedelic substances is quite an experience, compared to alcohol which numbs.

          • Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de
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            6 days ago

            Ok, I was not precise in my wording – but THC clearly is a psychoactive substance through which people can observe profound experiences and have intense physical and emotional perceptions.

      • CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Yeah, they have some nice things going for them but Japanese culture still very patriarchal and conservative overall

          • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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            7 days ago

            That plus a massive amount of inherent isolationism plus an extreme birth shortage and an already very aged population.

            The writing is on the wall in many ways unless major, unprecedented changes were to be made. Japan in a hundred years will be unrecognizable without them.

    • Blackout@fedia.io
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      They are some of the most repressed puritans. I would always try to get my friend to leave work early (in reality on time) so we could do something but they will not stand up for themselves. Have to put in the minimal 10hrs per day in a 40hr workweek or you are a slacker.

  • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    amid increasing concerns that the lack of a ban on use is promoting drug abuse by young people.

    This fucking backwards ass notion of weed as a “gateway drug” needs to die. Their reasoning for calling it that shows their idiocy, in that it’s called that because it’s cheap and harmless, so they think it will lead to people believing other drugs are similar. Imagine branding something as dangerous because it’s (Checks Notes) cheap and harmless.

    Although from personal experience, I’d say that weed is a gateway drug of sorts, in that if you’re addicted to something far more dangerous (like alcohol), using weed can act like a “gateway” to sobriety.

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
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      It’s Japan. If anything is promoting drug abuse, it’s the work culture.

    • Shard@lemmy.world
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      Welcome to Japan, where everything, especially their mentality is fatally stuck in the glory days of the 1970/1980s.

      Even today they still use fax and computer usage is the office middling and general computer literacy is abyssal.

    • tatterdemalion@programming.dev
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      It’s not harmless. It’s linked to mental illness and increased stress. People need to stop spreading this myth.

      EDIT: I know that people are down voting because weed is incredibly popular and rarely does harm, but that doesn’t mean you should propagate the myth that it’s harmless. Your personal experience should not speak for everyone.

      Weed can easily cause intense anxiety and paranoia if the user takes more than they can handle. This is just as true for someone who is trying it for the first time as it is for someone with a long history of use.

      If you have ever had panic attacks or heart palpitations, the combined increase in heart rate and anxiety may trigger a panic attack. It’s also habit-forming enough that people who’ve had panic attacks will keep using it despite knowing they are risking a really stressful experience.

      • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        You’ll need to cite your sources on that, though the APA style guide doesn’t have a citation format for “conservative grandparents with dementia.”

          • Dasus@lemmy.world
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            “Someone’s asking for sources on wild claims, quick, let me google some correlations!”

            If you look at the link between alcohol and mental health disorders, cannabis is way safer, and there’s not even a direct causal link to what would cause these correlated issues with cannabis use, unlike with alcohol, where there’s a clear causality.

            • tatterdemalion@programming.dev
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              Someone’s asking for sources on wild claims, quick, let me google some correlations

              You say that like it’s a bad thing. What else am I to do when someone asks for sources? I’ve read similar research in the past and went to find it again.

              If you look at the link between alcohol and mental health disorders

              That’s whataboutism.

              • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                I’ve read similar research in the past and went to find it again.

                Correction, you’ve googled similar studies before. I’m pretty sure you haven’t read them. There’s literally nothing there except sampling bias and weak correlations.

                You can do that for literally anything

                That’s whataboutism

                No, it isn’t. It’s not “what about alcohol” as in “let’s not talk about cannabis, but talk about alcohol instead”.

                It’s a “you don’t understand the actual risks involved, you don’t understand that you’re linking things you think they prove something (even without reading them) that confirms the bias that has been programmed into you, so here’s some context to make it more understandable”

                The context being objective science not having found any causality with mental health disorders and cannabis, and honestly, not even proper correlations.

                If this was about the dangers to mental health, then those dangers would be objectified, and alcohol would be considered more dangerous and prohibited. If for some reason the prohibition of cannabis doesn’t come from objective science, but pure political shitcanery, then it wouldn’t care at all about the objective facts of any of the risks, but it would pretend toeven going so far as to completely make shit up

                Which is exactly what is happening here, and you’re perpetuating it. Probably without realising it, but you are.

                • tatterdemalion@programming.dev
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                  There’s clearly no convincing you. By all means, continue to spread the myth that cannabis can do no harm to anyone, and eventually the wrong person will believe you.

      • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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        if you’re into that, just wait till you hear about alcohol and cigarettes! Anxiety, paranoia and panic attacks seem fine compared to Cirrhosis, COPD, Emphysema, Cancer, Stroke, Renal Failure, Kidney Failure, and Fatty Liver Disease. All of them painful, all of them deadly.

        But god forbid people smoke some weed 🙄 They might in very rare occasions get a temporary increase in anxiety!

        • tatterdemalion@programming.dev
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          More whataboutism. We’re talking about weed. And I’m not making the blanket statement that no one should smoke weed. I’m saying it does have health risks that should not be ignored.

          Also it’s offensive that you would trivialize the suffering that people go through in a panic attack.

    • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
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      And yet alcohol shall not be banned.

      What are they thinking?

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
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      In my experience weed can be a gateway drug when you have to buy it from a drug dealer. As an analogy, lots of people end up buying something other than what they went into Target to buy.

      • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
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        Also a criminal record can fuck your life in a myriad of ways, if like me you fall in love with someone from another country and you both have weed charges neither country will let you live together even decades later destroying what’s probably your only chance at happiness.

        These rules are needlessly cruel and absurd.