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Cannabeginners: How To Legally Use Cannabis In Japan
Before toking in Tokyo get the facts on what is legal.
Japan has a long history with plant medicines, including cannabis and psychedelics, but like most of the world, after WWII they were forced to change their drug laws to match those of the United States. Now, Japan is in a similar place to where the United States was back in the 1990s, with activists fighting to re-educate society about that rich history and a medical cannabis industry in its earliest phases.
Can You Bring Cannabis to Japan?
Before getting into Japanese cannabis laws, a word on bringing cannabis to Japan. As this Japanese Customs brochure makes clear, “Don’t even think about bringing drugs into JAPAN!” Punishments are different depending on the substance in question, and even legally prescribed opioids need pre-approval from the Japanese government or you may be arrested when you enter the country. When it comes to cannabis, importing cannabis to Japan with no intent to sell can be punished by up to seven years in prison, with intent to sell, it could become ten years. Simple possession of cannabis is up to five years, with intent to sell, it becomes seven years. By comparison, Japanese laws on selling opium are less restrictive than those for cannabis.
History of Cannabis Use In Japan
Japan has a long history with cannabis and hemp, dating back to the Jomon Period (roughly 11,000-300 B.C.), some of the earliest evidence of use is from pottery recovered from the Fukui Prefecture. Junichi Takayasu, who founded a cannabis museum in Tochigi Prefecture, is an expert on the history of cannabis in Japan and says “Most Japanese people see cannabis as a subculture of Japan but they’re wrong, Cannabis has been at the very heart of Japanese culture for thousands of years.” During the following millenia, cannabis and hemp played important roles in Japanese culture, with hemp being used to craft all manner of things from clothing to sacred Shinto rope, and cannabis based medicines available in drug stores until the 20th century.
Takayasu says that during WWII, “there was a saying among the military that without cannabis, the war couldn’t be waged.” Everything changed after WWII, when Japan lost the war the United States occupied Japan, and brought their prohibitionist view of drugs with them.
Hemp and Religious Usage
Shintoism, the native belief system of Japan which predates historical records, is a spirituality that recognizes the divine spirit (Kami) of things in nature such as trees, mountains, and waterfalls. Shinto translates to “the way of the gods” and celebrates the seasons, showing reverence through a small shrine near the natural spirit being honored. Shinto also includes rituals to purify, which traditionally involve priests waving bundles of hemp leaves.
Beyond bundles of hemp leaves, Shinto shrines are adorned with shimenawa, a sacred rope made from hemp. Given the importance of hemp to practitioners of Shinto, even though cannabis cultivation is very harshly regulated in Japan, there is a special license for people growing hemp to produce shimenawa.
CBD Is Legal, But Limited
Thanks to a loophole in Japan’s Cannabis Control Act, CBD products derived from hemp have been legal since 2013, so long as they meet certain requirements. First off, it is effectively impossible to extract CBD from hemp grown in Japan, so all legal CBD products are imported, and those imported products must certify that they are THC-free. Secondly, the only legal CBD in Japan must be extracted from the stem and seeds only, which means, unlike France, CBD flower is not legal.
Despite these limitations, a Tokyo-based research group estimates that the Japanese CBD industry was estimated to be $59 million in 2019, nearly 20 times what it was in 2015. Future projections anticipate the CBD industry in Japan could be $800 million by 2024. Part of the reason for that growth is that, just like in the U.S., clever chemists are tweaking CBD into THC-O and a range of other cannabinoids.
Medical Cannabis Still a Work in Progress
While CBD is legal for some uses in Japan, at present, they still have not finalized their attempts at medical legalization which began in 2021, when the health ministry announced a plan to potentially reform the Cannabis Control Act. Part of that reform effort involved the creation of an expert committee, and those experts recommended various reforms, including medical cannabis legalization. Currently, the Cannabis Control Act uses a part-based system, where certain parts of the plant are prohibited or legal for use (and where the current CBD loophole came from). Experts hope that current reforms could include switching to an ingredient based system (just looking at cannabinoid content). The benefits of that switch could include the legalization of smoked or vaporized CBD flower, or possibly the birth of a medical cannabis industry.
Psychedelics in Japan
Despite extremely restrictive laws around cannabis, psychedelic mushrooms, peyote, and other hallucinogens were legal in Japan until 2002. Those psychedelic plants were sold by street vendors and in vending machines at “love hotels,” and there generally was a permissive attitude towards plant psychedelics. That all changed in 2002, when Japanese authorities changed the law and closed the loophole around plant psychedelics, possibly because the World Cup raised concerns about hordes of soccer hooligans high on mushrooms. Those enterprising street vendors have not gone out of business, and now sell “dappou herb,” which is a similar idea to spice or bath salts (the quasi legal drugs), plant matter sprayed with substances that resembles other drugs (stimulants, cannabinoids, hallucinogens, etc).
Source: https://hightimes.com/guides/cannabeginners-how-to-legally-use-cannabis-in-japan/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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