Countries have the right to decide what their drug policies are. Though their culture can look repressive from an American perspective, Japan is a democracy -- not some authoritarian state -- and any policy reform should be entrusted to the Japanese people to pursue as they see fit. The fact that this policy has existed for over half a century with minimal calls for reform is an indication that most Japanese support it. This may be hard to understand from our American perspective, but Americans are often guilty of enthnocentric thinking. As Kad mentioned, Japanese drug policy arose out of historic and cultural factors that are specific to them: a post-WWII amphetamine crisis that wrought a lot of havoc, the threat of the yakuza, cultural stigma around drug use, etc. From what I've heard from Japanese people, they see their zero-tolerance policy as an acceptable trade-off compared to the problems caused by a more liberal drug policy.
When you go to another country, show respect to that country's people. (And if you don't support the policies or culture of a given country, then don't support them with your tourism money.) Flouting the rules that the Japanese people are largely supportive of shows a basic contempt for their culture and customs and, by extension, the people.
Updated On: 12/10/25 at 02:25 PM
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