Smoking marijuana is now illegal in Japan, can get you 7 years in prison

New Cannabis Control Act rules loosen some restrictions while adding a new one.

Though many countries have loosened marijuana-related legal restrictions recent years, Japan has an accurate reputation as a country with very strict laws regarding the drug. So it might be surprising to hear that, up until this Friday, smoking marijuana wasn’t illegal in Japan.

That may seem to contradict our previous reports about a ramen cook being arrested after the police found the pot stash he kept at his restaurant, a college student being arrested after airport customs officials found a bag of marijuana she’d hidden inside a hot dog bun, and other non-food related marijuana arrests. However, in all of those cases the charges were for possessing or providing marijuana, not using it. That’s because Japan’s Cannabis Control Act didn’t specify that using marijuana was illegal…but it does now.

Revisions to the law, first revealed back in 2021, went into effect on December 13. This isn’t an across-the-board tightening of cannabis regulations, as the revised rules now allow for the use of cannabis-derived medications, which previously were uniformly banned. However, along with decriminalization of approved medical uses comes increased penalties for non-authorized uses, such as recreational use. In addition to possession and provision of marijuana, use of marijuana is now illegal too, and carries a possible sentence of up to seven years in prison.

The legal changes follow 6,703 arrests for marijuana possession in Japan in 2023, the highest annual number on record, with 70 percent of those arrests being of people aged 29 or younger.

Of course, it stands to reason that unless someone is partaking in a very peculiar kind of hegemony where they have servants to hold their joints for them, it’s not really possible to use marijuana without also possessing it, so it would seem that smoking pot would entail at least two violations of the Cannabis Control Act, which probably won’t buy violators any extra clemency at trial or in sentencing.

So, while the law has a new wrinkle to it, the situation remains the same that if you get caught with marijuana in Japan, you’re probably going to be looking at some heavy punishment. In addition, though the use of cannabis-derived medications is now legal in a conceptual sense, it’s a good idea to check with customs authorities prior to departure regarding the legality of any specific substances you’re thinking of bringing into Japan, as there may be differences in how the Japanese government and your home country’s classify them.

Source: TBS News Dig via Yahoo! Japan News
Top image: Pakutaso
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