Japan's culture is a double edged sword. The very same phenomenon that allows you to have politeness-by-default and lots of dedication to professionalism is the same mechanism by which you get glacial paces of change when the culture settled into the wrong ideology. There are lots of more downsides (lots of flipped-coin situations), but this is just one of them.
Japan is much less likely to change rapidly on this front than any other society, in my opinion changing attitudes everywhere else is what will convince Japan. One thing I could see is them legalizing marijuana but taxing is incredibly (as a way to offset some long-term economics issues), but I don't know of a single politician willing to be that progressive (and not lose backing)... That's not what "progressive" looks like here really.
Take this with a grain of salt -- I think I understand Japan after living here for a while, but my "while" is <10 years and in the end it's hard to understand Japan as well as a native Japanese person might. Anyway here are a few:
- Excessive Politeness <-> Passive Aggression (once you over-step or under-step)
- Dedication to Professionalism <-> Overworking & <x>-theatre (the appearance of working hard becomes paramount)
- Pressure to behave "properly" <-> [Ex|Im]plosion of "improper" behavior
- Prioritizing the group <-> Normalization of oppression (ex. someone putting up with something that isn't right to avoid perturbing the group dynamic)
- Propensity to save money <-> Less economic liquidity (whether this is good or bad for an economy is very much up for debate)
- Emphasis on success/reputation <-> Very risk averse behavior
Weirdly enough, in my opinion all of these things are what make japan what it is, and partially what makes it interesting. I haven't checked but surely Japan is the most homogeneous large successful nation out there, with a very distinct culture. I feel like I understand it because once you see the other side of some of these behaviors, it just clicks -- some of it is just historical and requires much more research (could japan have been a matriarchal society? maybe?), but a lot of it just kind of obvious based on the values held by a populace that is so largely homogeneous in culture.
Again, I'm not an expert in Japanese culture, that takes decades of work and research -- but I've found a lot of these fairly obvious to see over the years.
> Excessive Politeness <-> Passive Aggression (once you over-step or under-step)
One thing I learned (the bad way) is that people at work will be nice to you and avoid confrontation and argument to an extraordinary extent. But if you push them too far and get into an argument.... that's it. You've ruined that relationship pretty much for ever.
Unfortunately it took me a couple of tries to understand the nuance of that :-(
Yeah that's the thing -- another thing is the propensity for people to hold to pretty meaningless relationships just for appearance sake. I think it's contributing to the loneliness issues here -- people are nice to each other but don't seem to ever actually connect. People will say they've "known" someone for 5 years, when they at most speak once or twice every year (and often never touch on anything substantial, either). I can't imagine how petty high society is here, or how much backbiting there is at the local HOA/neighborhood meetings -- I suspect it's worse than the US (because at the very least people will confront and settle an issue there, instead of leaving a minefield), but I will likely never find out.
I'm really trying to keep it light, but there is a lot to the underbelly of japanese culture that isn't so great, but all that said, it's a fantastic place to live, the cost of living is low (RIP japanese work force wages), public transportation is amazing, people are wonderful, there's a wide variety of influences and culture to sample.
Here's a light-hearted positive anecdote -- last year I left my wallet on a bus I was riding, and when realizing ~30 minutes later, I stopped a bus going the same direction to ask if the same buses came back (as in, would the same bus I left my wallet on come back the other way), and the driver not only confirmed, but also took out some stationery and wrote the number for the bus depot, and the called and coordinated extremely professionally. It was so professional that I was even a bit ashamed for sounding flustered on the phone.
To balance out that light-hearted positive anecdote -- don't ever go to a Japanese governmental agency without the right paperwork/seals/etc, it very likely will not end well for you.
Sorry for being chatty, but I just had to laugh. I'm in the middle of renewing my work visa for the UK (so I can travel there for work from time to time). I'm sweating bullets... but then reading your message I realised, "Wait. It's not Japan" :-)
But, yeah. It's best to keep it light in your own head. "Going up against Japan" is like going up against a brick wall. If you start getting upset about something you're just going to wreck yourself. Japan will not change. Until it does, of course. And then it will change literally overnight for no discernible reason and you'll be left wondering, "How the heck did everybody know to change???"
Absolutely no problem! I 1000% agree, submitting paperwork/doing some official function for any other country (except maybe Germany? I've heard they live up to the reputation) is a walk in the park once you've been on the wrong side of some transaction in Japan's bureaucracy.
> But, yeah. It's best to keep it light in your own head. "Going up against Japan" is like going up against a brick wall. If you start getting upset about something you're just going to wreck yourself. Japan will not change. Until it does, of course. And then it will change literally overnight for no discernible reason and you'll be left wondering, "How the heck did everybody know to change???"
This is so true. Japan will pull a 180 with near zero warning -- one of the biggest things here is the constant contradiction/juxtaposition of opposing forces -- I have to admit I just can't reason about some things. The example is a bit out there, but I could see gay marriage laws being reversed in that kind of manner -- there doesn't seem to be the judeo-christian stigma here, and most people seem to be neutral (younger people's attitudes aren't actually shifting that far from older generations) so it's the kind of thing that I expect might just happen at some point and everyone will be like "oh, yeah, of course".
Another fun anecdote (which may or may not be true) for others reading this (I assume mikekchar already knows) -- The reason you basically can never find trash cans around Tokyo is likely due to the subway sarin gas attack of 1995, Japan was basically like "can't bomb us if we don't have trashcans to put the bombs in", and that was that. I am thoroughly convinced the reason Tokyo isn't filled with litter is due to cleanliness being ingrained in the Japanese national identity -- you basically learn to just hold on to your trash (internalize your inconvenience) until you get home or to somewhere with a trash can.
There are tricks. Most districts have local laws that say that drink vending machines must have recycling bins for the cans/bottles (and they have to be emptied regularly). Similarly convenience stores must have trash cans and recycling bins. There are always trash cans and recycling bins on the platforms for the Shinkansen, but I've never seen them in normal stations in the countryside.
> cleanliness being ingrained in the Japanese national identity
That's a myth. Except if you consider the Japanese national identity was set in the 60s. What made the Japanese clean is the Japanese government, during the preparation for the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. Before that, Japan had trash everywhere.
>another thing is the propensity for people to hold to pretty meaningless relationships just for appearance sake. I think it's contributing to the loneliness issues here -- people are nice to each other but don't seem to ever actually connect. People will say they've "known" someone for 5 years, when they at most speak once or twice every year (and often never touch on anything substantial, either).
My last gf was Japanese, and this reminds me of her a lot. She supposedly had tons of "friends", but I almost never met any of them, and most of them just seemed to be people she texted once in a while. She tried telling me once that she could maintain a really "close" relationship without ever meeting in person or talking on the phone...
And our relationship wasn't very close either; she only texted me, never called, and really didn't seem to make much effort for us to get to know each other on a really deep level. It's what finally destroyed our relationship.
Is this normal with Japanese people or was she just weird? She did seem to possibly have other issues.
I don't have much interest in Japan or Japanese culture, so I don't really have much in the way of bias or preconceived notions on the subject.
In the last few years my Japanophile flatmate has brought multiple Japanese people into our home for short term (couple of months) cohabitation. I've also noticed what to me felt like a lack of interest in interpersonal depth or closeness, with myself and others. Conversations stayed rote, surface level, and formal - though flatly cheerful. I often felt like I was "stressing an introvert," was suddenly oddly conscious of the other's sense of privacy, and only got polite awkwardness in response to attempts to be open and build rapport. I just chalked it up to cultural differences.
My experience with dating in Japan (limited, although I did meet and marry my wife here in Japan) is that women are much more independent here than in the west. Obviously it's very much an individual thing, but I think culturally it's generally the case. Couples kind of go off separately and do their own thing and then meet back occasionally to recount their adventures.
As a kind of extreme example, young women in Japan have absolutely no problem with the idea of going off on vacation without their boyfriend. They will go with a group of female friends, or even go off on their own. In the west it would be unheard of, I think. If you saw a woman vacationing alone, you would almost certainly assume she was single. This is not the case at all in Japan.
People, in general, are also really guarded. It is said that you must have 3 faces: one that you show to everyone, one that you show to your closest friends and family and one that you show to only yourself. So that limits the kind of "closeness" that you can have. If "really getting to know someone" means knowing all their inner secrets and motivations... well, I think that is just incredibly unlikely to happen with Japanese people.
I hesitate to say this, but I only found out that my wife was religious 3 years after we were married! It's not that we have a bad relationship at all, but it's just something that was hers alone and private. Such a thing would be unthinkable in the west.
This is a difficult topic to discuss because it's again super cultural and there is a lot of "common knowledge" (i.e. things that you assume based on how you were brought up, but never really questioned).
All of us have bits that are private. In the west, it's usually our deepest fears or things that we are ashamed about. We project an image of ourselves that shows us how we would like to be, rather than strictly the true image. All of us are, to one extent or another, messed up inside and if we projected that, then everybody would be upset.
I tend to think of the guarded aspect of Japanese society to be less of a matter of withholding "the real you", but rather projecting the "you that matters to you most". My wife has kind of the opposite problem that you do. For example, if I'm afraid of something but struggle through my fears and succeed, I tend to share that with my wife. She thinks that's super strange. Why would I go to such a great effort to be courageous and then tell her that I'm afraid? In a kind of way, you are spoiling the work of art that is you by doing that.
I think in the west we think, "Oh but you need to have someone to confide in or else you will be lonely". I think this is really the difference. Like I said, people here are more independent. I think it's just a cultural difference and the way they they were brought up. "Getting to know someone" is less about sharing your secrets and more about learning about them by observing them. YMMV.
> ... people are nice to each other but don't seem to ever actually connect. People will say they've "known" someone for 5 years, when they at most speak once or twice every year (and often never touch on anything substantial, either) ...
What do you mean by 'connect', exactly, and how would you be able to judge about what is substantial to others, when the culture is so different to the Western one ? I have friends from Europe and the States, that after decades here, still don't get the vast differences in thinking and behaviour.
There's an emphasis here in people understanding how others feel ( or making an educated guess ) without actual spoken communication, that is difficult to understand for Westerners even after years in the country. A gesture indicating a feeling is often much more appreciated than a full-blown conversation. 空気を読め。
Most people that have come to visit us and met part of our Japanese family often comment on how cold or distant some family members seem to be despite being siblings, or a couple, and they couldn't be more wrong.
Some of those family members have the closest relationship I've ever known people to have. They just don't walk around making a point about it, or need to express it outwardly.
My wife would talk about the weather with her mother on the phone, once every few days. Just the weather. It was not what she talked about that mattered. It was the fact that she called, no matter what. If we had been living in Namie when Fukushima went nuts, and she had been on the phone, we wouldn't have left the house on the face of a nuclear meltdown before finishing the call. And she would have talked only about the ckufing weather, I assure you.
Being reserved in displays of affection with family is not what I'm talking about -- I'm talking about people you don't share blood with. Families can say lots to each other without words because there's usually a roughly 1-2 decade period where they saw each other basically every day for extended periods of time, went through hardships and usually one side literally helped form the other side.
IMO the order is reversed -- they don't need to talk because they have a very good/healthy relationship, it takes a large amount of consistent interaction to get to that level.
tangent Lately I'm really starting to think that relationships are really about both people building accurate models of the other person in their own heads -- after all you never really know another person, you just know about them and bring them into your your life and interact. When people are surprised by others it's because what the person did conflicts with the model of the person they had in their head.
Back to the topic though, in my comment I was more referring to friends/people you didn't grow up with -- people you met in high school/college/working in your 20s.
All this said, I think Japan has the propensity for great relationships as well -- I see old people who look like they've been good friends for 50+ years (same neighborhood, same groups, kids go to the same highschool, etc) and that is a wonderful thing worthy of envy.
Also just as much as people quietly show confidence in each other and converse without words, one of the biggest causes of societal pressure is unspoken expectations. The stiff-upper-lip gets idealized as the "right" way to interact and that's what the norm is. While most cases I'm sure are benign, expressing feeling is generally considered a good thing in a healthy relationship, whether or not you both know whatever you were going to say or not.
While I gave examples of family, my first two paragraphs referred to Japanese society in general. Should have been clearer.
> ... expressing feeling is generally considered a good thing in a healthy relationship ...
Not sure that can be assumed to be a universal truth. In most cases, in Japan, expressing feeling is sign of a problem. And often one reason ( of many ) for the isolation foreigners can face in Japanese society. While trying to 'express' themselves, they're actually making others feel uncomfortable by doing so, or trying to convey things that have been already understood, no need 'to explain the joke', you're ruining it.
Not trying to paint a rosy picture here, anyway, about Japanese ways. There are many problems in Japanese society ( directly related to the topic and mentioned in other comments, the massive and ubiquitous alcoholism and all its terrible consequences, for instance ), and societal pressure reaches levels hard to understand in the West, for sure.
> Not sure that can be assumed to be a universal truth. In most cases, in Japan, expressing feeling is sign of a problem. And often one reason ( of many ) for the isolation foreigners can face in Japanese society. While trying to 'express' themselves, they're actually making others feel uncomfortable by doing so, or trying to convey things that have been already understood, no need 'to explain the joke', you're ruining it.
That's certainly true -- differences in self-expression is often cited when talking to other foreigners about these kinds of issues.
Oh and I did not assume you were trying to pain an overly rosy picture of japanese culture -- I agree that they certainly emote less, and need to emote less because of the different cultural norms.
>There's an emphasis here in people understanding how others feel ( or making an educated guess ) without actual spoken communication, that is difficult to understand for Westerners even after years in the country
I assume a key problem with that is that when there is a disagreement that can only be well resolved through talking things out, they just don't know how to do it. So instead it is suppressed and everyone just pretends there is no disagreement.
To your point, there is much repressed anger, since the default attitude is to put up with things not to inconvenience others, a situation arising sometimes simply out of not speaking out on a problem. Which is wonderful in daily interaction as there seems to be no friction or unpleasantness as is the case often if not always in the West, where everyone complains and fidgets about everything. But, it’s been mentioned already I think, how extreme politeness in Japan can in fact be passive aggression in full force. And there's the occasional explosion of course.
Much of the niceness in japan is superficial. I don’t know one person who doesn’t gossip about each other behind their backs. I attribute this to boredom, loneliness and overall lack of fulfillment.
It's interesting how it clashes in technical circles, where a lot of things are very much black or white, and there a culture of terseness and going to the point.
The place I worked had that smooth and human focused vibe for the HR and marketing dept, and a mildly confrontational and straight to the point bias in the engineering dept.
Going to go with the unpopular opinion here, but I don't understand the comments saying "Japan/Korea is so backwards/archaic, cannabis tobacco and alcohol are all drugs, if you allow one, you should allow them all".
In the US/Europe, I totally agree with you. The benefits of making it legal far exceed the cost and the associated risks, so if I was asked to vote, I would vote for legalizing cannabis. But this is not a vote to cannabis, it's a vote against the criminal networks that are profiting from cannabis.
Now, what you are saying, is that a country that does not have a cannabis problem should still legalize it. Call me old fashioned, but I do not think that a society that smokes weed is better than a society that does not. Saying "yes, but alcohol/tobacco is worst" does not make is good.
Your point basically is: "these countries should allow weed because in the West, we do have an issue with the criminality associated with it". I believe on the contrary that Japan, Korea (and a few others, such as Singapore) should be very proud of not having a drug problem, keep one working towards not creating one, while at the same time focusing on solving their tobacco / alcohol one.
No, its not really a matter of being old fashioned - it's a matter of being authoritarian.
> but I do not think that a society that smokes weed is better than a society that does not.
The society that doesn't forbid people who want to smoke to do so is better because it is more free. That is valuable in itself, although this point seems to have fallen out of fashion on HN these days.
> No, its not really a matter of being old fashioned - it's a matter of being authoritarian.
Interesting line of thought, but how far do you take it? Legalize all drugs, even the ones that may end up killing people, or make them completely dependent?
A society that values Freedom needs to ensure its people remain free, and there are clearly substances out there that can make you a slave. How do you deal with that?
> Interesting line of thought, but how far do you take it?
That's a good question and a correct perspective for arguing these kinds of policies. The answer is "as far as possible".
Personal freedom should be default starting position. If it is going to be taken away it should be done in a way that is as minimal as possible while getting the best bang for the buck in terms of minimizing actual harm (with actual evidence backing it up).
"I don't like other people doing drugs, so we should put them in jail for that" does not meet this standard (or any standard worthy of it's name, to be frank).
"People will harm themselves by doing drugs so we will ruin their lives and put them in jail while spending way more money than it would take to actually help them" also doesn't meet this standard.
Yes legalise all of them like Portugal did, but spend all of the enforcement budget on rehabilitation and re-integrating addicts into society.[1]
What makes a drug addictive is not the substance itself, but the environment which surrounds the 'addict'. An environment that is poor in social connections and purpose makes drugs more addictive to the users.
This is a common misconception that Portugal legalized all drugs. They decriminalized personal drug use and possession of low quantities.
Drug use is still illegal. The difference is that you won't face justice and you won't go to prison. Instead, you will face a commission and they may send you to a rehabilitation center, or fine you for a reasonable amount.
Drug trafficking is still a crime which carries heavy penalties.
>Legalize all drugs, even the ones that may end up killing people, or make them completely dependent?
Yes, and then use the massive amount of money that goes to militarizing police and incarcerating none violent drug offenders for public health services such as counselors, rehabilitation, safe usage areas, HIV/hep testing, etc
Citation needed. Freedom isn't all it's made out to be. I'd much rather give up the freedom to consume hard drugs than live free in a society filled with drug addicts. Likewise I'm happy to forgo the freedom to own a gun if it means nobody else in my community has one.
This exchange is really interesting to me because it's really exactly the exchange that I've seen between Americans and Japanese people when they talk about a variety of topics (not just drugs). Americans (and to a certain extent people from some other western countries) seem to really value freedom culturally. It is to the point where even contemplating exchanging some freedom to gain something else is just obviously morally wrong without having to go through the necessity of justifying it.
I often say that one of the reasons why many Americans (and British people as well) have difficulty in Japan is because both American (and British) culture are heavily moral, but that they have completely different values than Japanese culture. Both think the other completely immoral at times.
The general Japanese response to the general American comment that people must be free is that individual's must not be selfish. The idea is that you decide as a community what kind of society you want and everybody has to be unselfish and give up some personal freedom to achieve this.
I get along well in Japan mainly because this is the kind of culture I enjoy. I get very frustrated in the freedom loving, but ultimately comparatively selfish environment of my origin, Canada.
The absolute biggest one is lying to your face :-) In Japan, it is really impolite to be overly critical of people or to act in an unfriendly manner. Everybody you meet will be nice to you and if you say, "I like underwater basket weaving" they will say, "Oh yes. That is very interesting" and smile. If you unintentionally force them into a confrontation like by saying, "Do you really think it is interesting? Do you like underwater basket weaving too", they will say, "Oh yes. I like underwater basket weaving" just to escape the conversation.
One of the side effects of this is that people can be super friendly to you, but you never really know if they like you or not. I have an ex colleague who was very helpful to me when I moved here. He looked out for me and even invited me to his home for dinner many, many times. He hooked me up with local groups, etc, etc. He even occasionally still asks me to go to some local events these days. But I'm pretty sure he hates my guts. He doesn't even send me a new years card even though I send him one (which seems like a pretty weird criteria for judging if someone likes you or not, but...)
You just don't know. People will never tell you outright stuff like this and they will "lead you on". Virtually every expat I've known who has problems in Japan loves to jump on this issue. "People here are false", they will say. "You can't trust them. They will lie to your face." There is a concept called "tatemae" which is the face that you have to present to society and it's a concept that rubs many westerners completely the wrong way.
Personally, I like it. I don't care one iota if my ex colleague likes me or not. He's been incredibly helpful to me. He treats me really well. He's been nothing other than a massive positive force in my life. Yeah, it's a shame we can't be friends, but that's life. Everybody treats me well here. Everybody is friendly. Everybody is nice to each other and treats you as if you are a friend, even if they don't know you -- even if they hate you.
But... yeah... it takes some getting used to and some people really don't like it.
>I have an ex colleague who was very helpful to me when I moved here. He looked out for me and even invited me to his home for dinner many, many times. He hooked me up with local groups, etc, etc. He even occasionally still asks me to go to some local events these days. But I'm pretty sure he hates my guts.
Why would he do these things for you if he doesn't have to? Obviously, he doesn't have time to do this for everyone, so does he have some incentive to expend this energy on you? Does being nice to you help him out in some way?
The principle behind what you’re saying really makes a lot of sense when we aren’t talking about law and the government. Freedom to self destruct isn’t of much help to anyone. All things being equal, we might be better off in a world where drugs just didn’t exist. The same is true when it comes to alcohol and cigarettes. It might even be true of guns.
This is a circumstance we can create as a society through disapproval and gentle encouragement towards something else. The government is more limited in its means, though: if we want to get rid of smoking with the government, for example, then we are de facto going to be putting people in jail over nothing. Maybe it starts with a fine but if a fine is big enough to hurt there will be poor people who can’t pay and they will end up with tax problems and then with jail time.
This whole concept of using the government to foster every desirable positive social outcome leads to authoritarianism and it’s a mistake. There are other organs of society we need to bring to bear, both to see the changes we want and to balance out the government itself.
> I'd much rather give up the freedom to consume hard drugs than live free in a society filled with drug addicts
It's interesting that you wrote this in first person. You can give up whatever freedoms you want, I don't care. But what you are actually saying is that you want to take those freedoms from others too.
For some things that might be worth considering - freedom is very valuable but perhaps not infinitely so. But there needs to be an actual argument - "I don't desire that freedom so I don't want anyone to have it" is not it.
Do you really think it's ethical to use violence against people who consume a certain plant or substance merely because they happen to live in a culture that doesn't approve of that?
To me it seems extremely likely that drugs and their legalization will ultimately be put in the same category as the legalization of homosexuality or the freedom of speech
The phenomenon also results in huge costs that the individual ends up imposing on society. I'm not saying that means the substance must be banned. But clearly there's a difference between freedom of speech/association, and freedom to consume addictive substances, and maybe that freedom ought to be modulated according to how addictive the substance is.
The huge costs are close to 100% related to policing something extremely difficult to police. And of course these costs are somoene’s profit. The DEA still insists that cannabis should be a schedule I drug, but to them these costs are profit and job security, another example how measuring success via profit corrupts then original purpose of an institution.
Similarly, if we were to outlaw red underwear or parsley, individuals who chose these things would incur similar costs.
1) Drug problems still exist in those countries. Albeit it’s different than say, the US, pretending that it doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
2) I’m not saying the attitude toward weed in japan should be the same as in the US, but having this amount of social stigma is ridiculous. It’s absurd when you consider just how much Koreans and Japanese people drink. It’s way more than Americans, and at least in Korea it’s mandatory after work for a lot of people.
3) Legalizing marijuana (even just for medical use) will not create or worsen any existing drug issues.
2) According to the WHO, Korea only drinks marginally more that the US, and Japan less: https://www.who.int/gho/alcohol/en/. TBH, this is a bit of a stereotype.
I'm confused by how to interpret 3. Are you saying:
- "If it's only for medical use, then it will not worsen the situation". I would overall agree with you on this.
- "Even if it's freely available it will not worsen the situation". I don't believe this.
I don't see how going from a situation where smoking is 1: illegal, 2: actually complex (unlike in Europe/North America), 3: extremely risky on the legal side, 4: socially taboo, to a situation where you can have shops on the street would not worsen drug issues. I can't find any studies has been conducted in any comparable societies, so we are both speculating, but I just find your point absolutely unbelievable.
I live in Korea. The amount of people who binge drink often and are hard drinkers in general, is higher than what I ever saw in the United States. It may be a bit overstated as a stereotype, but it is absolutely true.
Also, in the US, you do not have to go drinking with your colleagues/boss after work, out of social pressure. This is still common in Korea, especially for older workers. It's only now changing for the younger generation.
> socially taboo, to a situation where you can have shops on the street would not worsen drug issues.
These already exist, they're called "bars". One can pay money and enter a stupified state of consciousness, either quickly or slowly.
Unlike other drugs [including alcohol, a drug], marijuana is not physically addictive. I'm not advocating for hard drug stores to be present like bars are; I'm saying I don't have a problem with say, Colorado's style, so far. Making marijuana easier to smoke in Japan or Korea wouldn't be as dire as you're making it out to be.
Okay, I will call you old-fashioned. These things exist, and you cannot bury your head in the sand.
Do you know what happens when cannabis is illegal and people decide to skirt that? People synthesize technically-legal alternatives, and give them acronyms like 'JWH', and sell them online.
It may not seem too harmful, making the products of public research on the effects of cannabinoids on rodents available to the public. But the legislatures will catch on eventually, because it is a clear end-run around the law, right?
Fast-forward a few years, and look at all the harm that this causes; it's like heroin -> fentanyl. What is wrong with the principles of harm reduction?
That’s true in a society where drug use is a major problem.
It’s not true in a society where, statistically speaking, nobody cares about drug use.
Make something widely available and legal to a society that doesn’t have experience with it and doesn’t know the risks, and you end up with a chance of that community being absolutely ravaged by it. People just up and wasted away wherever opium was introduced. The northern territories in Canada have huge problems with people bringing in cheap liquor. What’s right and reasonable in one society may be absolutely destructive in another society, and westerners in particular refuse to accept that possibility.
Nobody cares about drug use in Korea or Japan? Alcohol isn’t a drug? Not only is alcohol a drug, it is one of the most harmful drugs to society (according to multiple recent studies), and it’s fairly obvious when you think about the huge amount of violence it provokes (aggressive drunks) and car accidents. Additionally, alcohol addiction is far more harmful to the body and mind than any other drug (yes including heroin). Alcohol is the only drug where you can die from the withdrawal symptoms (DTs). It is far more harmful to society overall than any drug other than perhaps heroin.
If Japan and Korea were to smoke marijuana instead of drinking alchohol, their societies would be better off immediately.
You clearly have some very backward and outdated understanding of drugs, their effects, levels of harm, and recent scientific studies on drugs.
It's weird how discussion of alcoholism in Asia rarely ever mentions the biological component.
Ethanol gives you the good feelings associated with drinking (and the incapacitation) and it gets metabolized into acetaldehyde, which gives you the symptoms of hangover (flushed face, headache, vomiting, etc.). Asian populations have a much higher prevalence of variants of two genes that encode for proteins that turn ethanol into acetaldehyde and acetaldehyde into harmless subcomponents. The variants are much better at metabolizing ethanol (20x faster) and completely inactive at metabolizing acetaldehyde.
Almost all Japanese (>95%) have at least one copy of a "metabolize ethanol faster" gene, and somewhere around half have inactive aldehyde metabolism, so given the same amount of alcohol, they would be far less incapacitated than a European (and red, and puking). The net result is a society that looks like it has a massive alcoholism problem to the west, that isn't quite as bad as it looks.
Oh, this is absolute bullshit and I think everyone who's smoked weed knows it.
The whole "dude weed is better it'll get rid of crime and so on" isn't something anyone takes seriously. Some people have horrible reactions to it (myself included) and it makes us anything but peaceful. And nowhere where weed has been legalized have alcohol sales died. People just use both. And if you want to dig through my post history, you'll see that I definitely don't have a "backward" understanding of drugs--I've got more than plenty of first-hand experience, and I've also moved from a "dude weed is good lmao" society to a zero drug society and I'll take the latter any day.
Crime rates in America haven't changed since weed got legalized. It's been on a fairly steady decline, albeit rising in 2015 and 2016 after some states legalized it. And while likely unrelated, murder rates have also significantly risen in Uruguay after marijuana was legalized.
And trust me, when it comes to crime, Japan doesn't need to model themselves after other countries. Japan's murder rate is the lowest of any country with over a million people. Maybe you should learn from Japan and start copying their laws? :)
You clearly have a backward and outdated understanding on crime.
The only people I ever experienced having bad trips from smoking weed were those with deep, unresolved mental issues. Unsurprisingly, those shouldn't consume any mind-altering drugs at all, including alcohol (which can easily trigger lifelong schizophrenia - seen it firsthand).
Because America wrote up the framework for post WW2 Japan, and drug laws are a part of that.
Nobody cares to repeal the laws because nobody is sticking their neck out to call for legalization because pretty much nobody is seriously using them. There aren't tens of thousands overdosing and dying on opiates and there's no debate on how high is too high to drive. It's simply not a concern.
You're not "old-fashioned", that's far too nice a word for someone who endorses violence and incarceration for people who like a drug that you disapprove of.
I agree with you if that means anything to you. The fact that drug problems in a country like Japan are far diminished relative to a country like the US means, in my mind, that the culture should attempt to maintain that purity, which can only be reasonably done by preventing people from partaking.
Take fast food for instance. The Americanization of the Japanese diet is leading to increased obesity in what used to be a very healthy society. It is the mere exposure of these addictive foods that has lead to this. Honestly, it makes me a bit sad.
Living in Korea, it's just baffling to see these ridiculous, archaic attitudes toward marijuana in Korea and Japan.
It's like stepping into a time machine. The internet and its resources are available, yet no amount of reasoning or information gets through to a lot of people. Marijuana is just "evil" or only "people who commit/will commit crimes" use it.
I don't necessarily think the attitude here should be just like in the US, but at least let people use it medically, and get rid of the disproportionate stigma.
As @laureig mentioned, one can’t even admit trying marijuana in polite/semi-polite company (of other Koreans). With foreigners it’s a little different. Generally it only gets discussed if you’re closer with them.
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At the same time, alcohol [and alcoholism] is not only totally fine, it's encouraged! Sometimes it's even mandatory to go drinking with your coworkers after work, due to social pressure from peers and bosses. I have spoken with a few people like this.
But going to clubs in 홍대 Hongdae/강남 Gangnam and drinking until 9am or drinking at a dozen bars in Golden Gai until 6am is totally fine. Drinking until you puke on the street is totally fine. (Admittedly I did do this once in 세종시 Sejong-City, Korea)
> The internet and its resources are available, yet no amount of reasoning or information gets through to a lot of people.
This is a "normal" thing, there was a HN article about it some weeks back: often if someone has their mind made up about something, often no amount of facts, figures, logic and proof will change their minds. They may even see these things as personal attacks. Facts are, sadly, not an effective way to convince people.
I'm currently reading the book "Never split the difference" by Chris Voss, a book on negotiation by a former FBI hostage negotiator. In it, he talks at length about why traditional negotiation techniques don't work: they assume that both sides are rational and can be persuaded through facts and value propositions. People aren't rational, they're emotional and to get through to someone, you need to get through to their emotional mind. The book then talks about different techniques he's used to do this, but the fundamental foundation seems to be to listen to what the other person is saying -- really, really listen -- and put yourself into their emotional shoes so you can understand not just what emotion they're feeling, but also why. He then uses rather simple techniques: he verbalises the emotions he thinks their feeling and the reasons. This forces the other person to acknowledge them (or correct him if he got it wrong), which has a calming effect, provides you with more information to work with and often makes the person realise if they're being unreasonable. That's only one technique used, of course, but you can see how he's not trying to engage their logical factual minds, but rather find a way to put out the emotional fires going on in the persons mind.
I think these same principles apply when trying to convince someone of anything. If they have an emotional stake in the debate, then facts and logic aren't going to cut it, but talking to their emotions hostage-negotiator-style just might.
>This is a "normal" thing, there was a HN article about it some weeks back: often if someone has their mind made up about something, often no amount of facts, figures, logic and proof will change their minds. They may even see these things as personal attacks. Facts are, sadly, not an effective way to convince people.
Does anyone know which article this is referring to? I'd like to check it out.
Quick HN search later... it may have been this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18099488 but I haven't had a chance to read through it to confirm, so might not be. I may also be imperfectly remembering what it said... so I hope I wasn't too wrong in my previous comment! Although, scanning the comments, that doesn't sound like what I remember...
I was just in a class on managing children's tantrums, and the advice is very, very similar. The mistake we make is assuming adults are fundamentally different feom children.
Absolutely! Chris even says in the book that while he perfected his art in hostage negotiations[1], they work just as well in business and in your personal life (and he even gave "negotiating your childs bedtime" as an example).
I'm really enjoying the book, both in terms of what I'm learning and entertainment. I highly recommend it!
[1] The unique thing about hostage negotiations is that you have to get what you want, or people may die, and you can't give anything meaningful in return. Most situations aren't quite that drastic, of course.
Not just that: in Korea, if you're drunk and punch/stab/rape someone, and you claim you were drunk, you may get a reduced sentence, because you were clearly too drunk to be responsible for your action. (Never mind nobody forced you to drink.)
At least more and more younger generation seem to be against the drinking culture. (Unfortunately, they still agree with older generation on marijuana...)
It's interesting and a little surprising to me that this is the case (the marijuana stigma in the younger generation). I stayed in a hostel in Seoul last year, and everyone was lighting up, including Koreans.
I'm not sure if it's still true, but North Korea used to be one of the few countries which had not outlawed cannabis.
Apparently it has a very strong root structure and they had a lot of problems with soil erosion, especially along railway lines.
It sure is amazing how different perspectives influence decision-making.
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in the country's history between WWII and Kim Jong-Un, check out Under the Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty by Bradley K. Martin if you want a dry but deep history, or Nothing to Envy: Oridinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick for a more narrative account.
Had a major surgery in Japan that required general anesthesia. During recovery, the only pain killer they would provide was loxoprofen (ibuprofen). Naturally, this didn't do much, and I couldn't sleep through the pain. But thankfully, I was given a prescription for brotizolam quite readily - - a powerful and abusable hypnotic used for sedation...
Anyway, still gotta say thank you to the doctor that put my knee back together! Also, with insurance the total was less than $1,000 and my drugs were a few bucks -- don't even want to imagine the cost back in the US.
Sure you are doing your part, but you should avoid glossing about the fact that it's cheap compared to the US when in fact the real cost is completely hidden to you and is reported to future generations.
The real cost was not hidden. In fact, it was quite clear to me -- it was on my bill. Even still, the total was a tiny fraction of what a similar procedure would have cost in the US.
Maybe because it's close relation to weed. A lot of people (in the US) associate cbd with being the same thing as weed just as an oil. Given the topic of weed acceptance there I think that's what makes it surprising. People there are able to make the clear distinction.
And do you often meet people with weapons in public in the US? I didn't. In fact, I met much more people with firearms in public in Israel. And guess what? It made me feel safer.
Though I know that both topics are highly discussable. I disagree with you on "archaic Second Amendment", but I like that you have your right to disagree with it.
The main problem mentioned in topic is not the weed consumption -- it's the taboo of even talking about it.
> do you often meet people with weapons in public in the US?
In many US states you can assume that people you walk past may well have a handgun under his jacket or in her purse.
> In fact, I met much more people with firearms in public in Israel.
In Israel 1) conscripts don't keep their weapons loaded (you can often see the ammo kept hanging separately outside), and 2) anyone with a weapon has received strict training on weapon safety. Gun ownership in Israel is not really comparable to the USA.
> In many US states you can assume that people you walk past may well have a handgun under his jacket or in her purse.
I think that's kind of a stretch. Where I live I think most people have a gun or two at home, and I do too, but I've never personally met someone who carries them around on the street. (For one thing, I've tried those conceal carry holsters, and found them extremely uncomfortable.)
The only time my guns are out is for hunting, or going to the range with friends.
It really isn't. I know a lot of people that have a concealed carry permit, myself included, and regularly carry a firearm. You would never know it, because it is concealed and they won't go around talking about it, but its relatively common. Also, I'm in a pretty liberal state so I imagine its even more common in conservative areas
If you have been in Israel you know that Tel Aviv is as much a warzone as NYC, and much less than Paris.
Though, something has to be added for context: 95% of people in Israel walking around with weapons are soldiers. So of course you feel safer than next to a random hillbilly. This is not relevant to discussion about the 2nd amendment.
>If you have been in Israel you know that Tel Aviv is as much a warzone as NYC, and much less than Paris
How so? Is the whole of Israel Tel Aviv? Is there not daily violence in Israel? Is there not a whole nation locked in a ghetto inside its borders? Is that not Israel? Only Tel Aviv is Israel?
Great that you feel so safe near Israeli soldiers, I myself will never set foot in the country.
>And do you often meet people with weapons in public in the US?
In the South, you can see people walking around with handguns in Walmart. It's not uncommon at all. If you didn't see that when you were in the US, it's probably because you were in one of the "blue" states.
It was definitely surprising to me to see grown men in suits throwing up on the streets nearly every one of the seven nights I spent in Tokyo. I don’t recall seeing any of that in the three nights I spent in Kyoto but having said that I didn’t have many late nights there.
I’ll add that the attitude towards things like stimulants that help people with ADD/ADHD is also a bit bizarre to me.
I’m was just in Tokyo, Shinjuku area. Around 5-6am while walking back from Golden Gai I saw guys in suits stumbling back; one guy face planted pretty hard and there was some blood.
Overall it was fun as a foreigner but it’s weird to see this as acceptable but marijuana (even medically) as not acceptable.
FWIW, many cities in Saudi Arabia including the capital Riyadh ban even tobacco in public: you need to drive 30km out of the town to the city limits to find a cluster of hookah bars.
AFAICT drinking culture is fairly different in Japan than in at least the USA. In the USA drinking leads to fights and violence. In Japan that seems far less so. Drinking and getting drunk in Japan doesn't have the stigma it has in the USA because it doesn't lead to the same issues? Include drunk driving in that since few people drive
2. attitudes toward drugs
SF is falling apart. I know you can argue the two are not related, SF falling apart and SF being one of the most drug friendly cities but I'm sure the Japanese don't find it quite so easy to separate those 2 things. I'm not 100% sure I can. Like many of the things that seems at least mildly related. The lower violent crime. The lower theft rates. The more respect for the commons (less trashing public things). For whatever wrong headed reason I find drug culture and trashing things related.
Your second point is pretty interesting. I wonder why it’s easier for people to blame drugs, rather than overarching social failures, such as the incredible lack of housing. Maybe those issues are more complex.
Consider that Paris is comparatively very trashy but also way more conservative than San Francisco.
Because the drug policy is one of San Francisco’s overarching social failures?
The city hands hundreds of millions of dollars to outreach organizations that operate with little oversight and offer no results. We hand out 400,000 needles a month to IV drug users, and the dirty needles end up in the streets and sidewalks, putting everyone at risk. There is human feces everywhere. We allow open use in broad daylight. In some neighborhoods, we allow open dealing in parks and street corners. Police don’t bother to make arrests because the DA wouldn’t prosecute anyway. More and more homeless drug addicts move here to take advantage of the de-facto deregularization. The city reacts by throwing more money at the problem, without oversight or results, and the cycle continues.
The large number of homeless who are mentally ill or addicted to opiates are unaffected by the housing costs, because they couldn’t afford a house at any price.
I think the message you are trying to impart is a bit lost in the vindictiveness you're implying. Imperfect rehabilitative justice might make society spiteful of inefficiency, but punitive justice doesn't have the best record there either.
I didn’t mention vindictiveness. I mentioned that dealers are allowed to break the law in the open without consequence. Vindictiveness is how you’ve chosen to interpret that.
I don't want to argue over the word choice, I said you implied it. Regardless, what I was trying to imply in response was that it would be unfortunate if despairing over deregulation's current state led to the belief that "tough on crime" approaches are a better alternative.
“Vindictive” means an strong or unreasonable desire for revenge. I didn’t imply that I want that.
You’re creating a false dichotomy between not enforcing laws on one hand, and being vindictive on the other. If those are the only alternatives you can see, that’s on you.
Why are you trying to argue over the word? Are you purposely trying to distract from your point and start an argument? If you don't accept how I tried to refine your point, then okay, but don't obfuscate it further.
"Police don’t bother to make arrests because the DA wouldn’t prosecute anyway. More and more homeless drug addicts move here to take advantage of the de-facto deregularization."
This reads like bemoaning they aren't locking people up, and is the rhetoric of tough on crime libertarians in my area.
"The city reacts by throwing more money at the problem, without oversight or results, and the cycle continues."
This reads like a justification for criminalization. If you don't think the criminal system is vindictive, I don't know what to tell you.
There are of course multiple options. That was what my initial post was trying to emphasize, not that you are some vengeful onlooker.
Edit: maybe I should emphasize this part of your sentence, "without oversight or results, and the cycle continues." because refining that rather than our dumb argument makes more sense.
Its relative. Punitive justice isnt perfect, but the track record for for more punitive cities seems to be much better than the cities who arent punitive.
I mean, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and most American cities have huge drug problems, and they're also incredibly trashy once you're out of the secure yuppie districts. And is the biggest city in France, a liberal country, really that conservative compared to SF?
Can it all be attributed to housing issues? Maybe. But Hong Kong has housing issues. I've never worried about my safety, saw needles on the street, or saw piles of shit everywhere (though I have in all the other cities mentioned).
I don't think it's any one issue. Drug abuse is only one aspect of the problem, but not the root cause. Although I think if cargo ships were loaded up with coke and heroin, Hong Kong's problems would end up quite a bit worse than they are.
>And is the biggest city in France, a liberal country, really that conservative compared to SF?
The GP brought up attitudes towards drugs, specifically. I'm not arguing other liberal points. Consider that Amsterdam has similar lax attitudes to drugs and isn't nearly as bad. Hong Kong, proper, is expensive, but Hong Kong also has a very rich public transportation system. My impression of Hong Kong is that you don't need to live in Hong Kong to work there.
Personally I think most US cities, and a lot of western cities in general suffer more profoundly from income inequality. I'd imagine it's very easy to feel trapped on the streets in SF if you can't afford housing or a car (Which are problems that can come to roost after several years of poverty, if you are poor, you can't build credit, so you can't get a car/home loan). If you have no life choices, its easy fall into drug use (see the rural america opioid crisis).
>"For example, last year, there were no fewer than 850 traffic interruptions and power cuts because drug addicts crossed the tracks, carried out their business on the tracks, or pulled the alarm to stop the trains to either sell or buy drugs," Chaplan, who is also a representative of the trade union SUD-RATP, said.
It was the introduction of the war on drugs that introduced the need to push drugs, to pay for the habit. When clean heroin and needles were available, along with treatment for those who wanted to quit, there was barely a problem at all.
Many nations had successful history of tolerance without problems of junkies. The the US was determined to export their war on drugs globally. The hysteria of Harry Anslinger who gave the world the Reefer Madness mentality, and faked acres of evidence, was the US representative for the newly formed UN committee on drugs. It was his swan song resulting from Nixon's public enemy number 1 initiative.
India, The Netherlands, Britain and others had almost no drug addicts prior to this. There were of course some - but they were still productive members of society - yet orders of magnitude fewer than in the USA under prohibition. No police connected drugs with crime or anti-social behaviours.
Now everywhere is in a similar boat to the US, drugs outlawed with enough organised crime that going back to the old ways is probably impossible.
The presence of junkies doesn't mean that city is open to drugs as San Francisco is. Cannabis is illegal in France, yet still suffers from the same problems. However, Cannabis is legal in the Netherlands and Amsterdam is far more hospitable.
What the GP was bringing up was the attitude towards drugs, not people using drugs in general. SF was a far more lax attitude to drugs than France, yet its afflicted by similar problems. Blaming drugs is just a convenient scapegoat so that harder problems aren't addressed.
Junkies are human beings with a problem. So are cancer patients. So are veterans with PTSD.
It's our job to remember they're people and need help, not cast them out further. We're rich enough as a species that we can save those in trouble; we shouldn't forget that.
Such attitudes are still quite prevalent in most US states and at the federal level, especially with former attorney general sessions. Archaic indeed, but hardly unique or surprising.
That's true, but the for the majority, that attitude has changed now. Of course there are still staunch holdouts [like the state where I went to college, South Carolina...] but overall it's much better. Particularly for medical usage.
What's more baffling is that it's totally acceptable to be an alcoholic and in a lot of workplaces it can be seen as negative to not participate in heavy drinking events.
You still have to go out drinking with coworkers because it's one of those things viewed as a social responsibility. And said coworkers will pressure you to drink because you're expected to get drunk among them as well.
There is a lot of combined pressure to get people to drink.
I have been going for years drinking with colleagues in Japan and I have never had a problem to avoid getting drunk by switching very quickly to soft drinks, and this, even in several companies.
"I have never had a problem to avoid getting drunk by switching very quickly to soft drinks, and this, even in several companies."
If you're an alcoholic or binge drinker, then you're in trouble basically. Some people can't just say no once they get started.
Hence my point stands, alcoholism is a large and accepted part of current day culture. In other countries I've lived and worked in, people avoided having work functions solely at bars for this and cultural sensitivity reasons.
protip: it's hard to tell the difference between a gin and tonic and a club soda with lime. once people are drunk, they don't necessarily notice who's still sober.
of course this doesn't solve the problem that being sober around a bunch of drunk people isn't much fun.
Not only that but Japan encourages alcohol consumption while enjoying the highest rate of stomach cancer along with Korea in the whole world. You have to wonder what the government is thinking, or how much corrupt politicians are.
The government is democratic, so it has to respond to the wishes of the voters. That said, it does seem like the Japanese government has made top-down efforts to change various things about the culture in that country, such as pushing companies to not overwork their employees so much.
I think a lot of the “hard working” stereotyoe of Asians in America (mostly Chinese and Koreans) come from the fact they are immigrants and start from the bottom once they get here.
What's interesting is that Hispanic immigrants start from the bottom, yet they usually don't go very high up the social ladder, don't get an education, etc., while Asian immigrants become doctors. I wonder if anyone's done any real research on this.
This is misleading. Hispanics as a whole haven't risen very much (but are rising) because there's a consistent inflow of new immigrants. Many also also return to their home countries after making a decent chunk of money. So this gives the appearance of not being successful.
Populations of Hispanics that do stay in the US for larger stretches of time have been successful. Cuban Americans, for example, have higher than average incomes and education rates: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Americans
Sure, not compared to Asian American as a whole, but having incomes over the median is a significant sign of progress. After all by definition having everyone have an above average income is an impossible goal.
It’s extremely difficult for the “average” Asian to make their way over to the US. But trust me there are plenty of “average” Asians. They’re just stuck in Asia.
Hispanics mostly just have to cross the US-Mexico border. Asians have to get across the Pacific somehow, usually through legal means with high barriers to entry, which is a great filter for the type of people that make it through to the US.
Also because of the communist crackdown on the gentry, most of Chinese emigrants were the well-off people, whereas in most cases emigrants from other countries are usually the poorer or less-well off segment of their populations.
It’s not a stereotype. I’m Asian. “You’re being lazy” is literally the most deveststing thing my dad could’ve said to me growing up. Remember, we’re talking about a continent where a large fraction of people daily engage in back breaking subsistence farming.
Are you Asian American? My point was that making it to the USA requires hard work, privlige, or money. It selects for a certain type of Asians and developed the stereotype.
Comparing literally any index of social dysfunction; crime, divorce, homelessness, mental illness rates: no Westerner has any right to lecture Japan (or South Korea) on how they run their country no matter how many "muh weed" articles they can find on the internet.
Japan has ridiculously low crime rates, yes, but they also have extremely high suicide rates, so your point about mental illness rates doesn't hold water.
Also, crime and murder rates in many western European countries are also quite low, though not as low as Japan of course. It's only America that has terrible murder rates (esp. by guns), but America is not like other Western nations in many ways, so you shouldn't lump them together, just as you shouldn't lump Japan and China together.
Japanese don't see suicide as something medicalized as in the West. It's also not much different in rates per 100k from suicide in the West, and the idea that they're exceptional here is ... well, kind of a dumb racial stereotype.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan
To each their own is a reasonable philosophy when you apply it to individuals. It's not quite so reasonable when you apply it to countries, as countries are anything but a 100% homogeneous set of individuals.
Perhaps some people in Korea don't think marijuana is evil. Maybe some people in Korea don't like being effectively forced to drink themselves senseless every day.
Heck, maybe some Saudi Arabian gays would prefer not to be executed - but to each [country] their own I guess, hmm?
Yes, but the parent post is specifically talking about countries so 'To each their own' I'm using is in the context of countries. A country in relation of other country.
Of course if you drill down within a country then the context of 'To each their own' is within its individual.
So just because alcohol is bad we should encourage other substances that also have an effect on people’s ability to think clearly and have additive properties? Instead of discouraging the culture of drinking? Regardless of what westerners think of as “ridiculous” drug laws, Japan, Korea and other Asian countries with “ridiculous” drug laws do have way lower rate of drug addiction and abuse. That is no coincident.
Those statistics are highly suspect, from the article:
"Every year, the government gathers these statistics by approaching 6000 households and asking them to fill in a questionnaire. They don’t have to write their names on it, but they do have to hand them over to a government official. In a country where – as I’ll discuss later – even doctors call the police to inform them if their patients are suspected of using drugs, it is very likely that this method leads to figures that hugely underestimate the proportion of Japanese people using drugs."
As well as:
"He concluded: “A very Japanese way of not dealing with the problem is – don’t take the data that would show that it exists.”"
We have no idea what the statistics might be as they don't want to measure them since then they would have to admit that they have a problem. If people are in pain they'll find a way to escape it, and it seems there's a lot of people in pain in Japan and Korea due to the focus on extreme amounts of work and strict social rules. How they are doing compared to the west is a matter of debate, I think roughly equal just with different areas being difficult, however we can't truly measure and compare as the numbers are being deliberately ignored.
Ganja has, and is being used in a lot of meditation and yoga practices to help with focus, perception and attention. It’s use has in many ways helped develop many of these practices throughout countless generation.
Representing it as a substance which clouds the mind is only due to ignorance of its intentional use for the opposite.
That's an excellent point, any substance that alters your brain chemistry such as Marijuana, Alcohol, or Coffee can have a positive or negative impact. We are rich complex beings and everything we put in our body adds to that. I think many of the harmful substances can have a positive effect if used in a healthy way. We need to let go of either demonizing them for their negative effects or deifying them for their positive effects. Once we realize they're complex supplements that can be an enjoyable addition when used in certain circumstances while still respecting their potential for abuse we'll have made a big step forward.
Alcohol has virtually no positive health benefits. Ethanol is potently toxic and will cause DNA damage throughout your body and kill a number of other cells in the way.
But alcohol consumption is ridiculously evolutionarily beneficial. The ability to digest ethanol has evolved independently twice, and each time it swept to dominate ~95 percent of the population in less than 500 years.
It is an energy income method, albeit not the best. In reasonable amounts it strengthens social bonds in group. And there might be few more. There ya go. Wanna grab a beer?
Downvote? Cute, does that equate to social pressure to consume ethanol?
Any alcohol consumption increases the incidence of multiple types of cancers, the primary metabilite (ethanal/acetaldehyde) causes damage to DNA.
I can bond with people over my passion for the sciences, I prefer to avoid increasing my risk of cancers. No NMDA antagonist needed.
"The evidence indicates that the more alcohol a person drinks—particularly the more alcohol a person drinks regularly over time—the higher his or her risk of developing an alcohol-associated cancer. Even light drinkers (those who have no more than one drink per day) and binge drinkers have a modestly increased risk of some cancers (3–7). Based on data from 2009, an estimated 3.5% of cancer deaths in the United States (about 19,500 deaths) were alcohol related (8)."
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/a...
We can admit that drug use is in essence a religion and perscribing acceptable modes of use is little more than a sectarian conflict that needlessly destroys human lives, like all other sectarian conflict
Sure, China in the 1800s everybody had good amounts of fun from opium, widely accepted by society, pretty much everybody did it. Wonder how that worked out for them.
In my experience more people than you might expect have experience with cannabis in Japan. I was at a small party and the topic of cannabis came up. I asked the group if anyone had smoked it before. Everyone gave a resounding "No, of course not".
When the party was winding down, two separate people said "Actually, I've tried it. I just didn't want to say anything in front of other people."
I find it strange how in the next few weeks up and down the country Japanese people will go out and many will get very drunk from morning to night while sitting under the blooming sakura trees but any other drug is so taboo you can barely mention it in polite company.
Yeah, I totally forgot about the polite company thing. It’s exactly the same with Koreans. The ones who were forward about it were people who had lived in America or abroad for some period of time, typically.
In the same way you shouldn’t ask a group of Koreans “do you understand?” when teaching, because they might answer “yes” to save face.
It’s definitely an interesting culture, compared to mine (American).
Not sure what exactly you're referring to; most people don't refer to illegal drug abuse openly in polite company here in America either. Of course, it's also impolite to ask.
Maybe it's a generational thing, but in my circles (40 and under), no one conflates cannabis use with illegal drug abuse -- the latter implies something like heroin addiction.
Maybe it's also a generational thing, but at parties I attend, it's not uncommon for someone to mention having spent their last birthday having used blow, or mention back to some time they dropped acid, or whatever.
Drug talk seems much less taboo than sex talk; the people who talk openly about sex are either sex workers or poly (and those people proselytize more than vegans ;-) ).
I think it may be more regional. I'm definitely under 40, but have never heard a prostitute mention her job, let alone proselytize. Same with drugs, though you're right that marijuana is not taken as seriously.
Oh, I meant the poly folks proselytize :-) Just that the sex workers I know don't avoid talking about their work; they just treat it as work, as any of us do.
What region are you in? I'm talking about my experiences in both the Pacific NW, the Midwest (college towns), and a few of the larger cities on the east coast.
No matter how much or what kind of drugs are being used, it's not logical to ever wage a drug war. This is probably the sickest, most disgusting American cultural export in a sea of sick, disgusting cultural exports. It's one thing to succumb to this type of sick, vile thinking when a country is under occupation but a whole other thing to keep at it once you are no longer occupied. In no way am I singling out Japan here. Most countries succumbed to US pressure on this issue and even made it their own issue, persecuting and killing their own people. The people who perpetrated these acts, acts akin to war crimes themselves should be ashamed and hunted down but that won't happen because justice doesn't exist. It is not too late to reverse such policies and to shirk off this horrific cultural export as even the US is starting to do. Unfortunately, many of these people ardently believe the lies they learned and want to continue killing, jailing, torturing, and persecuting others who are sick and would be better off served with compassion and medical care. Hopefully, the world will wise up and get rid of this drug war, this American mind poison, and reclaim their cultures and dignity for their countries.
Drug overdose deaths continue to increase in the United States
From 1999 to 2017, more than 700,000 people have died from a drug overdose
Around 68% of the more than 70,200 drug overdose deaths in 2017 involved an opioid
In 2017, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids (including prescription opioids and illegal opioids like heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl) was 6 times higher than in 1999
On average, 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose
The LD50 for cannabinoids is approximately your own weight. At least in the monkeys and rats studied, because there has never been a documented human overdose and proper studies are both unethical and (in the US) illegal.
Basically, a marijuana dry flower overdose would come after A) your lungs were ruined by the enormous quantities of smoke inhaled after a short period or B) you were crushed or smothered under the plant material.
It's amazing to me how Japan can be so Puritan about some things, and so... not Puritan about other things. Though I guess an outsider could say the same thing about the U.S.
I would be more surprised to find any longstanding human culture that didn't have any glaring inconsistencies in the things it encourages vs the things it discourages.
True, but some cultures take it to a greater extreme than others. Usually it's the ones most focused on self-purification that have the most hidden vices. America and (apparently) Japan seem to be towards the top as far as first-world countries go.
I would argue that the American people are far less hypocritical than the government.
Most Americans who do marijuana, cocaine, MDMA, etc. will fairly readily admit to it if you are in their circle of friends. Heroin, crack, and crystal meth have a bit of stigma associated with them and so will get relatively less admissions unless you are a bit higher on the friend scale.
Most marijuana users I know will tend to offer you some fairly unprompted.
I think a lot of these things boil down to demographics. What societies make the most dynamic changes in the shortest times? My theory is that it's ones with large-base demographic pyramids. Once you become vertical or inverted (like Japan a couple decades ago, the US and most of europe, China soon) you start to become more conservative as a society. Things change more slowly, maybe not directly in terms of politics (meaning things may not swing far right) but in terms of the actual look and feel of society.
This article is enlightening in Japan's attitude towards these stimulants. But I could go any convenience store and pick up bottles of "genki" (energy) drinks. There doesn't seem to be much regulations and only the occasional news story of people overdosing.
To be fair, adderrall (And other Amphetamine based drugs) are illegal in a lot of countries that are not the US. The stimulants Ritalin and Modafinil are available here, and Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine) is in clinical trials
Why exactly did the US go so crazy against drugs? Seems like after WWII this war on drugs mentality took root and probably peaked in the 1980s or so with the peak of the WWII generation's power.
It's hard to believe that one single ideologue had so much influence, and directly caused so much suffering to so many people.
> Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters.
> Anslinger collected dubious anecdotes of marijuana causing crime and violence, and ignored contrary evidence such as doctor Walter Bromberg, who pointed out that substance abuse and crime are heavily confounded and that none of a group of 2,216 criminal convictions he examined were clearly done under marijuana's influence,[9] or a discussion forwarded to him by the American Medical Association in which 29 of 30 pharmacists and drug industry representatives objected to his proposals to ban marijuana. One such statement claimed that the proposal was "Absolute rot. It is not necessary. I have never known of its misuse.", although only the single dissenter (who noted he had once encountered a doctor who had been addicted to marijuana) was preserved in Bureau files.
Well, we already have the examples of Mao, Stalin and perennial favourite for worst person to have ever lived (even though he doesn't measure to the previous two in terms of atrocities committed) Hitler.
Anslinger might be even worse though, because while we recognise the other three as clearly evil (or at least their acts as atrocious), his views are still held as good moral standards by societies around the globe.
Hemp competed with cotton and doesn't require chemical spraying (it's a weed!). How are you going to convince John Q. Public to ban hemp? Give it a Mexican-sounding name...
The Nixon-era War on Drugs:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
I've heard versions of the war on drugs as a veiled racial policy [0]. But, I'm not from the US, and that idea seems too ... convenient (?) so I wouldn't take it at face value.
> The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did [0].
For context, that's a direct quote from John Ehrlichman who "was counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs" under Nixon when Nixon declared the war on drugs. Everything kind of snow-balled from there.
According to the chronology provided by PBS [1], perhaps the first groundwork was put in place by LBJ founding the "Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs" in 1968 (campaign year that Nixon won), the timing of which correlates with Nixon's successful campaigning on a "theme to restore 'law and order'"[2].
I guess it had to do with hippies protesting aganst the Vietnam war, DuPont's money, Mexican farmers getting a buck, Eastern Block countries being hemp fibre exporters. The US esentially destroyed this industry in other countries, except for China and India who pretty much control this market now.
My guess is that, at least when it comes to Marijuana, conservatives are so deeply offended by drugs because they're anti-productivity. Pot slows you down, relaxes you, lowers drive (even just temporarily). For those on the right wing, this translates to, "it makes you lazy, a burden on society, it undermines the American spirit of hard work and self-started progress". They rationalize it any number of ways, but I think that aspect is what makes it personal.
True, but we tried prohibiting alcohol and that didn't work out. And when the War On Drugs rolled around, Marijuana being grown by hippies was its poster-child, not the cocaine being peddled by gangsters. That was illegal too, but that's not where the emotional heart of the crusade was. Cocaine was used by businessmen on the weekends; marijuana would corrupt little Jimmy and ruin his future as a productive member of society.
We tried banning everything else and that still isn't working out lol
The black market of current day mirror that of alcohol prohibition. No controls on products and rampant violence
It depends, there are accounts of high drug (cocaine, meth) use in Nazi Germany. In the US people abuse prescription drugs. In highly competitive societies you will see drug use specifically to enhance productivity at least on the short term, with unfortunate consequences.
I have an interesting personal anecdote on this. I'm a 27-year-old Caucasian American (relevant) who doesn't speak any Japanese and who recently spent 3 months in Japan with my girlfriend.
Her aunt by adoption is an ethnically Japanese native of Tokyo who of course speaks fluent Japanese, and we spent a month living with her there.
At one point, we went over her aunt's friend's family's house for dinner. The friend's family does not speak any English.
All night we managed to have a really interesting and fun time by using Google translate to translate what I wanted to say (my gf mostly just spectated), and Google translate would horribly mistranslate it to humorous and confusing effect, and then Yuka (the aunt) would explain to the family what I actually meant with a proper translation.
Now in the middle of dinner, after a good hour of this and now at a stage where we had mostly set google translate aside, it came up that I don't drink alcohol, and the father commented how much money I must save this way. And I, fool that I am, joked "oh no I blow all the savings on cocaine." And I looked at Yuka, who chuckled and said "no, no, I'm not going to translate that." But she didn't add any cultural warning, so I thought she was just being a little formal. So I said, "fine I'll translate it with google translate!"
Now sure, you might say it was a bad joke, but in the US depending who you're eating with it would still elicit chuckles or smiles, even if it was just polite.
Not in Japan. When I held up the phone with the translation for them to see, the reaction was shocked silence. It was as though I had held up an image of hardcore pornography at the table. Even the two high school age boys were horrified, not so much as a smile.
After a moment the father muttered in halting English "bad joke."
And that is how I learned just how taboo drugs are in Japan.
In retrospect Yuka found it hilarious. "I told you not to say it!" "No you didn't, you just said you wouldn't translate it, that's not the same thing!" "Ha ha well..."
It's worth noting that this article is by Johann Hari, who has a long history of telling compelling but untrue stories. Most recently about depression:
> I was told by Jake Adelstein, one of the leading experts on drugs and crime in Japan, and the author of the book Tokyo Vice.
He must be _really_ good to rank above all the experts who are from Japan.
OTOH, while Japan may have failed to produce leading experts on drugs and crime in Japan, they seem to be doing pretty decently in terms of actual drug and crime issues. If you were Japanese, would you want to follow American advice on drug and crime policy? There are many good things about America, but would you say its drug and crime situations are the highlights worth imitating?
It amuses me how Western media outlets continue to quote Adelstein, his entire shtick consists of spouting made up stuff about Japan to Western reporters with no means of fact-checking.
I guess it goes both ways though, the self-proclaimed "America-tsuu (US experts)" here aren't any better.
Is there some legit criticism on him and provable dishonesty? I don't know much but I seem to recall him publishing stories uncovering and/or reporting on what could be viewed as problematic or even embarrassing things about japanese culture.
It's not like he acts with any apparent agenda or malice, the guy just has no regard for facts. Everything he writes consists of a small sliver of facts mixed with tons of faux-noir, spiced-up BS that paints some exotic portrait of Japan tailored for Western audiences.
I guess we all want foreign countries to be more exotic than they really are — I remember when I first moved here from LA, my classmates seemed disappointed to learn that I'd never been involved in a gunfight :/
Well, the thing is that most of Japan’s Japanese experts on drugs and crime don’t spend a significant amount of their time interacting with the English speaking world, and there aren’t many people interested in merely translating their work without adding their own take on it.
Jake Adelstein however has become very good at being a point of contact for English speaking non Japanese speaking people who wish to report on Japanese crime, independently of how qualified you might think he is or isn’t.
No, only parts of Western Europe have tended to be particularly lighter than the US on drug laws. Aggressive US drug laws are also mostly a recent phenomenon (recent in the history of the country), the war on drugs era combined with mandatory minimum sentencing. For the majority of US history, there were few drug laws at all.
Nearly all of Asia, comprising 35-40% of the world population, lives under far stricter drug laws than exist in the US.
The US will federally legalize marijuana at some point in the next decade, as enough states legalize it. China is definitely not going to follow, you can expect them to hold firm on that. There's a chance that given some time (within two decades after the US legalizes it perhaps), South Korea and Japan will be seriously considering it. The US influence on those two nations will play a big role in the attitude change, and it'll still take a long time.
Could you name a few countries you're thinking of?
Also, there is a huge amount of nuance lost in the term "drug". Alcohol is a drug, Tobacco is a drug, Marijuana is a drug, Oxycodone is a drug. I think what most people mean when they mention drug laws being harsh in the US is the combination of very high penalties for drugs that have been proven to have minimal negative repercussions, and the CIA's sordid history in the US and abroad. You don't have to take my word for it, since wikipedia exists[0] (there's lots more but it's a good starter).
Most societies may say they are anti drug, but how harsh is the sentencing, and how much of it is actually prosecuted?
Outside of obvious examples in Asia, Brazil's drug laws have created a disaster there for one very large example:
"In 2005, 9 percent of those in prison were detained on drug charges -- now it’s 28 percent, and among women, 64 percent. The law, 11344/2006, has contributed to the last decade’s explosive rise of Brazil’s prison population. More than 620,000 inmates swelter in facilities built, in aggregate, for about 370,000."
"Under the 2006 law many users have simply been prosecuted as traffickers, made easier by the fact that the law does not set a minimum quantity of drugs to differentiate between users and traffickers."
Brazil also has a pretty big reputation for police corruption, and much more concentrated/blatant issues with organized crime which can skew those numbers, which is less of a problem in the US. Abuse of a bad law is one thing, but in the cases where some drug use was confirmed (even if arguably without intent to redistribute), I think the US has the heavier hand.
Even if I'm 100% wrong about Brazil, compare their 28% to the US's 45%[0].
I don't think you're wrong about any of the points you made at all.
I still think that the influence of the US is not actually the cause worldwide.
Do you think it's a sustained psychological attack by the US on all countries in the world?
But then our enemies would stand up against that. They don't seem to. They seem more anti drug than we are. (China)
I think the simplest explanation is that China wants it this way and it's their lucid choice. Maybe they have a massively deluded society? Are all societies massively deluded about pretty much everything? I guess that's a possibility. But it is a strong point to make.
I think it's actually the shared morality that seems to have gripped the world. Maybe it originated in the west, but I don't think so, I think it's been around longer than that.
I could get really tinfoil-hat-y and say that it's often just a method of control (hard work as virtue to motivate people at the bottom of the pyramid), but I think it's safer to say that most of the time for one reason or another most societies decided the best way to attack the problem was through propaganda.
> Does the US really have harsh drug laws compared to other countries?
Depends on your race. The USA has the second-highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world, and a large proportion of those currently or formerly incarcerated are black men facing time for simple cannabis posession. Not a problem if you're a white male who went to a good school and "knows this guy," and has time to post on HN.
Japan is much less likely to change rapidly on this front than any other society, in my opinion changing attitudes everywhere else is what will convince Japan. One thing I could see is them legalizing marijuana but taxing is incredibly (as a way to offset some long-term economics issues), but I don't know of a single politician willing to be that progressive (and not lose backing)... That's not what "progressive" looks like here really.