Dec.
1997, Xene #01
Drugs in Japan - The End of Denial...
by Michael O'Connell
Teen amphetamine abusers grabbed headlines this fall,
threatening Japan's reputation as a drug-free Shangri-la
among more decadent industrialized nations. A close
look at the situation, however, shows a drug problem
that embraces all ages, from students hooked on illegal
stimulants to older Japanese addicted to legal prescription
medications.
Kids These Days...
Year-on-year drug-related juvenile arrests in 1996
more than doubled, and a report released by the Ministry
of Education in October found an alarming number of
students amenable to experimenting with illicit substances.
Increased availability and lax social attitudes are
to blame, according to prevention experts. The Narita
Airport Customs Office reports the volume of drugs
smuggled into Japan (excluding marijuana) has been
increasing, and in the decade following 1984, global
seizures of heroin and cocaine doubled and tripled,
respectively. As of 1994, Japan ranked fifth in the
world for confiscation of illegal stimulants, after
the U.S, Thailand, England and Australia, according
to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
New ways of taking drugs also are making them more
accessible. The practice of heating stimulants to
inhale their vapors has freed speed from its frightening
association with the hypodermic needle.
Not Just Kid's Stuff
Although
"speeding" youngsters have ignited fears
among the public, the mundane reality is that illegal
drugs are just the tip of the addiction iceberg. Older
Japanese hooked on legal drugs account for a significant
proportion of addicts, according to Dr. Kenji Yanbe,
a physician at Asahiyama Hospital in Sapporo.
"In the last 15 years, overall, speed has been
the major drug of addiction among my patients,"
he says. "But in the past three years, it's been
changing to sleeping pills and other addictive legal
drugs."
Yanbe, whose hospital is one of the few in Sapporo
that offers drug rehabilitation, notes that patients
hooked on legal medications outnumber habitual users
of amphetamines and other stimulants.
A trip to a Japanese hospital suggests why. Patients
suffering even the most minor of illnesses are given
an arsenal of medicines. In a quest for profits, Japan's
"medical-industrial complex," the cozy alliance
of hospitals, health care officials and pharmaceutical
manufactures, has created a budding drug culture.
"Patients who are addicted to legal drugs got
hooked after going to a hospital for treatment of
a psychological or emotional disorder, such as insomnia
or depression, "says Yanbe.
Ripple Effect
As for youngsters, what is most disturbing is their
lukewarm reception to the government's "No, Absolutely
No!" campaign, which is a hard sell in a "Just
do it!" youth culture. According to the Ministry
of Education's "White Paper on Primary and Secondary
Students' Attitudes Toward Stimulants and Other Illegal
Drugs," roughly 30 percent of secondary students
do not consider drug use harmful to others and feel
experimentation is a matter of personal choice.
Those on the front line of Japan's drug war denounce
this attitude.
"There's a misunderstanding among young people
who think that they wouldn't cause problems for others
by using drugs," cautions Yanbe. "Drug addiction
brings about unlimited trouble for people around the
addict. If you say people use drugs by themselves
and die alone, this may be so, but looking at the
drug issue in this way is basically wrong."
Yanbe notes that many of his female patients are divorced
as a result of their drug habits, just on e example
of rippling social repercussions.
With more Japanese traveling overseas and more drugs
entering the country of being produced here, the question
of whether to experiment with controlled substances
is no longer a theoretical one.
Dai, a 24-year-old company employee, first tried illegal
drugs as a student overseas. "When I was 17,
I tried marijuana in Canada," he says, "But
I didn't feel high because I thought it was a bad
thing [to do]. If I went back, I'd try it again....
I did [psychedelic] mushrooms and hash. But that was
in Canada.... Actually, I've smoked marijuana in Japan,
too."
A first-year high school student said he wasn't personally
aware of anyone taking drugs at his elite public school,
but "I've heard from my friends that some classmates
abuse [prescription] medications. They buy them at
the drugstore. I don't know what they're called, but
when you take them you can't move. And at night in
[Sapporo's] Odori Park, gangs sell cocaine and glue."
"My friends here have tried drugs," notes
a woman in her twenties," and my friends in Australia
smoke marijuana. Most students in Japan have no knowledge,
so the just try them."
WAKE-UP CALL
Educators
and health care officials are reluctantly realizing
that they must address the situation.
An official of the Hokkaido Government's Health and
Welfare Department explained that the prefecture is
enlightening the public through the national "No,
Absolutely No!" campaign by passing out pamphlets
and holding a annual event in June.
A representative of the Sports, Health and Physical
Education Department of the Hokkaido Board of Education
noted that the Health textbook approved by the Ministry
of Education includes materials relating to drug abuse.
But Sapporo secondary schools encouraged to distribute
drug abuse prevention materials respond in a depressingly
similar way, according to Shunichi Suzuki of the Sapporo
City Health Hygiene Office.
"They tend not to use them," Suzuki says.
"Parent-Teacher Associations are particularly
uncooperative. They object because they don't want
the schools to have a bad image. And parents think
that exposing kids to this information will only stir
up curiosity to experiment with drugs."
Parents worried about curiosity killing the cat are
not aware that the cat is out of the bag. Information
is already available through magazines, TV and from
peers. Several Japanese internet homepages discuss
the merits of legalizing marijuana, and one pro-drug
Inter net site based in the US. even offers a "Drug
Price Project Report" providing city-by-city
details on the availability and quality of various
drugs in dozens of countries - including Japan.
Yanbe thinks that government attitudes mirror those
of high school students.
"[Students think] people only use drugs by themselves
and can be responsible for the results of their actions,"
he says. "I think that the government may have
this same attitude. It's a 'high school student' way
of thinking, but I feel that the government may share
this way of thinking."
In this light, it is telling that the Ministry of
Education study limited its focus to attitudes. The
study failed to ask students whether they were actually
using drugs. While Japan is slowly waking up to the
issue of drug abuse, it is keeping one eye closed.
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You Can Beat It - Rehabilitation
"Frankly
speaking, the reason many hospitals don't want to
treat drug addicts is because it's not profitable,"
says Dr Kenji Yanbe, a physician at Asahiyama Hospital
in Sapporo. "In order to deal with the problem
appropriately in the future, when it becomes more
serious, we have to start making a system right now."
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, addicts
are treated at one of three kinds of hospitals: those
under the jurisdiction of mental health regulations,
public mental hospitals established by the national
government, and mental hospitals (public and private)
with a psychiatrist specially designated by the national
government.
National Health Insurance pays for about 30 percent
of treatment costs, with social welfare insurance
covering another 20 percent Treatment consists of
several steps First is cessation of use, which often
involves withdrawal symptoms. This is followed by
education about drugs and addiction. In group therapy,
addicts talk about their history of using drugs. Under
Japanese law, patients cannot leave without the doctor
discharging them.
Yanbe notes that virtually no addicts he treats come
of their own will.
"At Asahiyama Hospital, about 60 percent of patients
are here at the urging of their families, " he
says. "About 20 percent were referred by another
port group. Ten percent were introduced by the Social
Welfare Office, because they can't really work and
they get welfare... Occasionally, school teachers
suggest to their students or to their students' families
that the kids come in."
- with Hiiro Mujin, Kaoru Yamaguchi, Hiroko Fujisaki
and Taketo Endo
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Arrested in Japan - One Man's Experience- by
William Kennedy
Enforcement of laws against drug use is regarded differently
in different countries. Some prefer to concentrate
on smugglers, others on suppliers. In Japan, personal
use -- or even evidence of use -- is enough to send
you to jail. For a foreigner who happened to be in
the wrong place at the wrong time, this meant a 40-day
odyssey through the Japanese judicial system.
"It
has been dulled by time, but at the time it was very
wild," remembers Scott, who spoke to Xene in
a telephone interview from his home overseas. He agreed
to the interview on the condition that his real name
not be used.
At the time of his arrest five years ago, he had been
in Japan for two and a half years and had a good job
in a city in western Japan. His arrest, he says, was
of a friend when the police burst in sometime before
sunrise.
"I didn't know what the hell was going on, it
was four o'clock in the morning," he says.
The police were interested in his friend and had not
expected to find Scott there. They tore the apartment
apart looking for drugs, finding nothing to incriminate
the friend.
In broken English, an officer told Scott that he had
to provide a urine sample. Under Japanese law, a suspect
may refuse to answer police questions, but Scott was
led to believe he had little choice in the matter.
He was taken to a local police station, gave his sample
and was released.
Looking back, he says he was faced with a choice at
the moment: he could leave the country immediately
or wait to see what happened. When he returned from
work the next day, the police were waiting for him.
Traces of illegal drugs had been found in his urine.
He was arrested and charged.
"All of sudden, everything was gone. My job was
gone, my family didn't know where I was, "he
says.
That night, he was questioned by police who wanted
to know who had supplied him with the drugs found
in his system.
During the two-hour interrogation session, he had
no lawyer to advise him. Under Japanese law, lawyers
are not allowed to be present during questioning and
finding one is the suspect's problem. If a suspect
cannot find a lawyer, the case - and the questioning
- continue.
Several days later, he was transferred to a local
detention center, where the interrogation resumed.
The questioning was meticulous, says Scott, and every
detail was recorded, but the police treated him very
fairly, with none of the abuses international human
rights groups have alleged take place in Japan.
A week after his arrest, he was visited by a representative
from the consulate. "He said there was nothing
he could do. He just told me to hang in there."
Consular officials from both Canada and the United
States confirm that there is little they can do in
most situations, other than ensuring that Japanese
law is complied with.
A spokesman at the Canadian embassy in Tokyo said
that consular staff generally try to ensure that Canadians
in trouble with the law are treated the same as Japanese
prisoners. That may be small comfort to a prisoner
in a Japanese jail, where the Japanese authorities
make the decisions.
"The consulate may be told [by a Canadian prisoner],
'My cell is cold,' but the authorities will say that
all the cells are cold," he says.
After several weeks, Scott finally decided to tell
the police what he knew when his lawyer (found for
him by friends) couldn't be sure that Scott, despite
being a victim of circumstance, wouldn't receive the
maximum two-year sentence for his offense.
"I really didn't know how long it was going to
be," he says. "I was a little worried they
were going to make an example of me for other foreigners."
It turned out that the person had already left the
country and Scott's case rapidly came to a close.
The judge assigned to Scott's trial at the last minute
was known for his leniency and even an incompetent
interpreter did little to hinder proceedings.
He received a suspended sentence in s short trial,
although he still cannot say exactly what he was convicted
of, and feels the outcome was a foregone conclusion.
He was allowed to remain in Japan for six months and
now returns almost every year.
"They
let me slide through," he says. He realizes how
lucky he was that his was such a minor offense and
is philosophical about his experience, saying that
he had been in Japan a while and knew he had broken
the law."
If there is a moral to be taken from this experience,
he says, it is that foreigners must realize there
are many things they can do in their countries that
they can't in Japan.
Traces of drugs in his urine landed him in jail for
40 days and almost cost him two years of his life.
A representative of the American consulate in Sapporo
echoes Scott's comment. "The best advice is not
to get arrested in the first place."
