Given that cannabis in Japan is harshly prohibited, the plant is practically unheard-of there. However, over the past couple of years, an unlikely spokesperson for cannabis emerged in the figure of Akie Abe, the wife of conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.<\/p>\n
Her support for liberal causes<\/a> has won her the wry nickname of the \u201cdomestic opposition.\u201d In addition to opposing nuclear power and free-trade deals, and speaking out for gay rights (all positions contrary to her husband\u2019s), she has also advocated both a medical marijuana program for Japan and wider legalization of industrial hemp farming.<\/p>\n Other voices for cannabis from outside the political establishment are coming to the fore. A report<\/a> last October on pop-culture website\u00a0NextShark noted the 2016 candidacy for a parliament seat by popular TV and film actress Saya Takagi, who is an open advocate for overturning Japan\u2019s harsh marijuana law. She didn\u2019t win the seat, but her campaign brought mainstream exposure to the legalization question for the first time. Then, in April of last year, she was\u00a0arrested for possession<\/a>\u00a0of 55 grams of cannabis at her home in Okinawa. Her one-year prison sentence was suspended, probably due to her celebrity.<\/p>\n But perhaps the most interesting development for cannabis in Japan is the recent opening of Japan\u2019s first\u00a0Taima Hakubutsukan \u2014 which translates to \u201cCannabis Museum.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The Taima Hakubutsukan and its founder Junichi Takayasu were the subject of an in-depth feature<\/a> in\u00a0Japan Times in 2014. It opens with the amusing anecdote of how Takayasu\u2019s interest in cannabis began. When he was but three years old, he saw a picture in a book about ninjas that would change his life. \u201cThe book showed how ninjas trained by jumping over cannabis plants,\u201d Takayasu said. \u201cEvery day they had to leap higher and higher because cannabis grows very quickly. I was so amazed that I told my mom I wanted to grow cannabis when I was older.\u201d<\/p>\n After years of research, the museum opened in the town of Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, about 160 kilometers north of Tokyo \u2014 one of the few parts of the country where the plant is still grown under government license, albeit only low-THC varieties for industrial purposes. Takayasu sees this local production as a survival of a long legacy once deeply rooted in Japan. \u201cCannabis has been at the very heart of Japanese culture for thousands of years,\u201d he told Japan Times.<\/p>\n The earliest evidence of cannabis in Japan dates back to the\u00a0Jomon Period<\/a>\u00a0(10,000-200 BCE), with pottery relics unearthed in Fukui Prefecture containing seeds and scraps of woven hemp fibers. \u201cCannabis was the most important substance for prehistoric people in Japan,\u201d Takayasu asserted. \u201cThey wore clothes made from its fibers and they used it for bow strings and fishing lines.\u201d He also notes culinary and medicinal uses.<\/p>\n Cannabis also had a revered place in\u00a0Shinto, Japan\u2019s indigenous religion. Priests would wave bundles of leaves to bless worshippers and cast out evil spirits.\u00a0The early 20th<\/sup> century American scholar\u00a0George Foot Moore wrote about traditional use of cannabis-leaf bundles\u00a0during the summer\u00a0Bon (or Obon) festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n Takayasu points to cannabis references in the\u00a0Manyoshu<\/a>, Japan\u2019s oldest collection of poems (written in the\u00a0Nara Period, circa 700 CE), and in the famous 17th<\/sup> century book of woodblock prints, the\u00a0Wakoku Hyakujo<\/a>.<\/p>\n And in World War II, industrial hemp was grown under contract by the military for the war effort \u2014 and especially in Takayasu\u2019s Tochigi Prefecture, mirroring the simultaneous \u201cHemp for Victory<\/a>\u201d campaign in the United States.<\/p>\n Ironically, it was this military association that led to cannabis finally being suppressed under the U.S. occupation after World War II. American anti-drug orthodoxy was wedded to the campaign to demilitarize Japan. In July 1948, occupied Japan passed the\u00a0Cannabis Control Act<\/a> \u2014 the harsh law that remains in force today.<\/p>\n Today, there are fewer than 60 licensed cannabis farms in Japan, all growing industrial hemp<\/a>. The industry is danger of extinction.<\/p>\n But Takayasu is trying to reverse this trajectory. \u201cJapanese people have a negative view of cannabis but I want them to understand the truth and I want to protect its history,\u201d he summed up to Japan Times. \u201cThe more we learn about the past, the more hints we might be able to get about how to live better in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Another effort worth noting is the website\u00a0Taima.org<\/a>. In Japanese, the word \u201ctaima\u201d means cannabis. The website contains a wealth of information about the use of the plant in the archipelago nation over the centuries, but its homepage mission statement reads: \u201cAs a taboo subject, little information is available about hemp in Japan, or about Japanese hemp outside of Japan.\u201d Now, there are hopeful signs that this is changing.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> did you know about the legacy of cannabis in Japan?<\/p>\n The post Recovering the Lost Legacy of Cannabis in Japan<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Given that cannabis in Japan is harshly prohibited, the plant is practically unheard-of there. However, over the past couple of years, an unlikely spokesperson for cannabis emerged in the figure of Akie Abe, the wife of conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Her support for liberal causes has won her theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3937,50,3938,99,3939,321,3940,3941,3942,3943],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25320,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25319\/revisions\/25320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\nRead More: Recovering the Lost Legacy of Cannabis in Japan<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"