Japan Should Consider Allowing Medical Cannabis, Health Panel Says (bloomberg.com) 49
Japan -- which has strict laws against the use of marijuana -- should consider approving the import, manufacture and use of medicines derived from cannabis, subject to the same approval process as pharmaceuticals, a health ministry panel said. From a report: At the same time, the country should do more to discourage recreational use of the plant, the committee said in its findings following a meeting Thursday. Possession of cannabis is illegal but not its use; the panel recommended that unsanctioned use should also be made a criminal offense. While Canada, several US states and some European countries have decriminalized the recreational use of marijuana, penalties for possession, cultivation and sales of the substance in Japan can carry prison sentences of as long as 10 years. Just 1.4% of the population have ever tried cannabis, according to one study with 2017 data. Celebrities caught for possession often become front-page news.
It both annoys and cracks me up... (Score:2)
It both annoys and cracks me up the paranoia over such a mundane mind altering substance. Most Japanese wouldnt think twice about tying one on drinking alcohol at a work function but heaven forbid they consume the evil marijuana, they might.... eat a bunch of snacks.
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It both annoys and cracks me up the paranoia over such a mundane mind altering substance. Most Japanese wouldnt think twice about tying one on drinking alcohol at a work function but heaven forbid they consume the evil marijuana, they might.... eat a bunch of snacks.
I my neck of the woods even mossback conservatives are in favour of legalising the stuff. The fact that the government still considers Marijuana a 'gateway drug' is beyond hilarious. It's kind of like those people that still consider Dungeons and Dragons Satan worship.
Red Gateway (Score:3, Insightful)
In fairness it is kind of a gateway drug - not to harder drugs (alcohol is MUCH more effective in that role), but to redder elections. At least so long as the ban is maintained.
I mean, the stuff was originally banned primarily to disenfranchize Black, Hispanic, and Hippy communities, who were all tending to vote against the incumbent political machine.
Today, thanks in large part to biased enforcement of the law, cannabis prohibition continues to primarily disenfranchise those same communities - communities
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Cannabis (actually ALL hemp) was made illegal around the same time that Dow chemicals was introducing Nylon as replacement for hemp in production of rope, and a short time after Congress had passed laws encouraging farmers to grow hemp for rope production (we actually ran out in WW1)
Harry Ansligner (who has been one of the anti-alcohol warriors and was soon to be out of a job after the end of Prohibition) whose father in law was a big time player in the stock markets, and it is quite likely that influence h
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While you are mostly correct, though I thought Hearst was the prime mover, it is more complicated.
There was also the Puritan mind set that pleasure is bad and a movement going back at least to the end of the 19th century to prohibit all pleasurable drugs (and sex, gambling etc). A movement that saw many drugs becoming illegal, almost including chocolate, and culminating with amending the American Constitution to make alcohol illegal.
Today, most hard drugs are illegal, ruining many lives, especially with the
It's for political reasons (Score:1)
In America Nixon got caught when he did it because his own people came out and admitted it. They couldn't live with the guilt of what they'd done.
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"Recreational use" is often smoking the drug, and Japan has got a lot tougher on smoking in the past decades.
You can no longer smoke in public outdoor places except inside designated smoking areas or smoking booths.
There are also still health risks. A few people do get addicted to it. Others develop psychosis, which is a factor for developing schizophrenia: and how that works is still not well understood.
AFAIK, CBD oil is unrestricted in Japan though.
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"Recreational use" is often smoking the drug, and Japan has got a lot tougher on smoking in the past decades.
You can no longer smoke in public outdoor places except inside designated smoking areas or smoking booths.
Yeah, the anti smoking theory doesnt pan out for me. I doubt their smoking laws are any more strict than California's and pot has been plenty legal here for a while now.
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You are falling for the correlation vs causation argument
It is far more likely that people with mental problems use cannabis as a way to feel better, rather than it driving them mad
Although, realizing that your government would lock you away for decades for using a harmless plant is rather maddening
Also, never forget that there are literally billions of dollars of federal money committed to anti-cannabis efforts and every single person who is making money off of it will lie like the devil to keep it illegal
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What you're saying here doesnt make a damn bit of sense. If what you said was even remotely true true then heroin and other hard drugs would be legal, we certainly wouldnt have a giant organization like the FDA preventing tens of thousands of deaths every year from food born pathogens, and likely several other government departments wouldnt exist as well.
Stop inventing boogey men, the world has enough real ones.
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Oh ya, Japan has drinking problems. Not sure if they're getting better at that though. But only a decade ago it was not at all unusual to see drunk businessmen stumbling off the trains, white shirts and black ties while leaning precariously. Social norms meant that you had to drink more than the boss lest you make your boss look like a lush... A big customer base for the capsule hotels industry were the drunk guys on Friday who can't make it home or who don't want to embarass the family.
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Can't we just admit that people want to get high, and let them do at as long as they're not putting others in danger?
Yep. It'll also save us a metric shit-ton of money if we disband the DEA, etc., and crime will go down if nobody is killing each other over turf wars or burgling houses because they need money for their next fix of crack.
We need to figure out a way to prevent people driving cars under the influence though.
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Agreed - in a free society what people do in the privacy of their own home shouldn't be anyone else's business, and prohibition has never accomplished anything but funding black market turf wars and militarized police.
I also have no problem with serious DUI penalties, provided any financial costs scale with means (e.g. you pay a % of income rather than a fixed dollar amount). For alcohol most of all, most other drugs pale to insignificance compared to its dangerously debilitating effects on reflexes and ju
Legitimate medicine. (Score:2, Informative)
>But medical marijuana is such a scam
It really isn't.
There's certainly a lot of "back door recreational use" advocates helping push for medical legalization, but cannabis was legitimately recognized as a cure-all long before it became popular as a recreational drug and was banned. And its cornucopia of medical applications is only expanding as we finally study it more rigorously. In fact, the ban seems to have been push by three main industries: The pharmaceutical and lumber industries, who didn't lik
Re: Legitimate medicine. (Score:1)
Do people see more happy potheads around just walking the streets or less? I seems like less but I don't know. Maybe the "legit" strains are making it so? Not to mention what else they possibly could be putting in it?
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Do people see more happy potheads around just walking the streets or less? I seems like less but I don't know. Maybe the "legit" strains are making it so? Not to mention what else they possibly could be putting in it?
When upwards of 1 in 3 street pills could be poisoned with fetanyl, it tends to highlight the safety of procuring and using cannabis. Especially when procured through a legitimate dispensary where they have strict testing.
You don't just see happy "potheads". You see alive "potheads". Also known as patients in many cases. Sure as hell can't claim that across damn near every competing industry.
Re: Legitimate medicine. (Score:1)
Less the stoner and stoner ways and more the look. walk, speech, odor,....of someone on medication in certain situations. I think the line between medicinal and recreational is not well defined if it still exist at all. Opinion.
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I think the line between medicinal and recreational is not well defined if it still exist at all. Opinion.
I'd question the same about the ADD/ADHD industrial complex. Illegitimate use doesn't stop them from handing out scripts like candy. To children.
And quite frankly, outside of common sense DWI laws, there really doesn't need to be a "well defined" line. Medicinal was the compromise forced by Big Pharma Greed.
Re: Legitimate medicine. (Score:1)
Good point. And all makes the point that it is hard/getting hard to completely justify/support recreational use therefore, the harsh classification cannabis took on from governments was not as thoughtless as people made it out to be?
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Any take anyone "took on" from governments, is senseless. It was originally outlawed because the cannabis derivative (Hemp) can be used in tens of thousands of products (even today), and it directly impacted the paper and textile industry. Greed in those industries helped craft the Reefer Madness propaganda in the 1930s, which we fully know today the racist message of black jazz musicians literally going "insane" on cannabis and attacking the white community, was complete bullshit.
In the 1930s, cannabis m
Re: Legitimate medicine. (Score:1)
I believe the classification was due to the inability of private interests to act in good faith. Tobacco was seen not unlike cannabis 200 years ago, but the private interests made it a cash crop. And not until recently it was decided not so great to consume, and not before mass consumption made several generations sick, and not in a small amount due to all the poisonous crap they put in it. I believe even though they knew all those years ago cannabis could be socially beneficial they did not want a second t
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Here in Minnesota, there is a duopoly. The prices are ridiculous. Definitely a scam.
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As for getting high, same as getting drunk. DWI laws should should follow similar impairment protocols regardless of the cause of impairment.
For someone who is quick to demand studies, you should know that no study has ever shown cannabis alone to impair driving.
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Yeah but it's super annoying to get stuck behind a pot head driving 30 km/h in a 60 zone.
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As for getting high, same as getting drunk. DWI laws should should follow similar impairment protocols regardless of the cause of impairment.
For someone who is quick to demand studies, you should know that no study has ever shown cannabis alone to impair driving.
Actually I recall a test done in Colorado shortly after legalization where they were trying to determine just how much it would take to impair a driver around a coned course in a parking lot. Alcohol vs. Cannabis.
I believe alcohol impairment happened right at or just above the legal limit of 0.08. Cannabis impairment didn't start setting in until fourteen times higher than the levels they were trying to define for DWI roadside testing.
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no study has ever shown cannabis alone to impair driving
Studies are going to be difficult to come by as long as cannabis is still a federally prohibited substance. However, there are some statistical correlations beginning to surface in states where it is de facto legal.
https://wtsc.wa.gov/research-data/impairment/ [wa.gov]
I know. Correlation is not causation. But this will have to do until we can put together some proper studies with control groups and all.
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"It's clearly less harmful than alcohol or nicotine." - Please cite the study/studies.
Would 5,000 years of human use without a single recorded death from direct use suffice for you? More people have died from consuming too much water. The LD50 levels are basically humanly impossible. We're talking smoking a metric ton of it within an hour. Even Snoop Dogg couldn't do that.
I would pose that it's harm is different rather than less. Pregnancy studies are coming out - basically saying - don't use when pregnant.
Now it's your turn. Cite the studies please. You're not supposed to do a lot of shit while pregnant. But it's far from the harm caused by alternatives, and I highly doubt it's deadly to either mother or child, given
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Go back to Fark, CannaBevits
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THC has no practical lethal dose (like a bale of it falling on your head), while both nicotine and alcohol do
Obligatory onion (Score:2)
New dangers of marijuana study [youtube.com]
Med (Score:3)
It's the best (Score:2)
I live in a EU country an I get 90 grams a month for free, paid by my Health insurance.
As in beer.
It doesn't get any better.
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I live in a EU country an I get 90 grams a month for free, paid by my Health insurance.
As in beer.
It doesn't get any better.
...so you're smoking about 3 grams a day? Where I come from, that's the equivalent of about three good-sized joints every day.
I'm a physician, and I'm very well aware that cannabis (used in moderate amounts) has certain (very specific and limited) medical uses, but forgive me for being a just a little skeptical about the idea that your medical condition requires you to smoke three joints a day. If you want to be stoned all the time, and you're OK with the consequences of that, hey, that's your choice to m
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...But I don't understand why health insurance would want to pay for it.
Because health insurance realized it was ultimately cheaper to not have to treat those addicted to harmless cannabis, vs. those addicted to every other harmful alternative.
Makes sense if you live in a country with socialized medicine. Higher harm means higher costs for everyone.
Of course, America doesn't give a shit. Harm, is profit.
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...But I don't understand why health insurance would want to pay for it.
Because health insurance realized it was ultimately cheaper to not have to treat those addicted to harmless cannabis, vs. those addicted to every other harmful alternative.
Makes sense if you live in a country with socialized medicine. Higher harm means higher costs for everyone.
Of course, America doesn't give a shit. Harm, is profit.
Except that this is no longer the case, because today cannabis is prescribed all the time in the US-- often for chronic pain or to help people wean off opiates (probably the most useful medical application). There are a only a handful of states (like Alabama and Wyoming) where you're not allowed to prescribe cannabis-- and even in those places, you can legally get prescription cannabinoids like Marinol.
My point wasn't to say "medical cannabis is bad", my point was "that sounds like a ridiculous amount of p
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"I'm a physician, and I'm very well aware that cannabis (used in moderate amounts) has certain (very specific and limited) medical uses, but forgive me for being a just a little skeptical about the idea that your medical condition requires you to smoke three joints a day."
I don't. I bake cookies with it, since I don't smoke. It replaces the opiates that I was afraid to get accustomed to.
"But I don't understand why health insurance would want to pay for it."
They don't get asked, it's the law.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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The Medical Industrial Complex has far more to do with the criminalization of a natural drug people can grow for free and treat themselves, than any flavor of politician.
There is profit in cannabis, but doesn't even come close to the profit caused by massive harm provided by the competition.
I won't even start on the need for death.
Enough Social Etiquette problems (Score:1)
Canada legalized it (Score:5, Informative)
Not gonna happen (Score:1)