SNA (Yonago) — Since California first legalized medical cannabis in 1996, and Colorado and Washington followed with adult-use cannabis legalization in 2012, there has been an increasing global movement towards medical legalization, relaxing cannabis laws in general, and in some cases full legalization of adult-use cannabis. Even Japan may now be taking notice.

On June 11, 2021, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, announced it would be legalizing medical cannabis in the near future, even as it proposed the criminalization of other uses.

There was remarkably little news coverage of the announcement, but if it is followed by action, Japan could become one of the world’s largest medical cannabis markets in the world within just a few years.

Elsewhere in Asia, Thailand legalized medical cannabis effective December 2020, and got off to an energetic start in 2021 developing the infrastructure to manufacture medical-grade cannabis products.

If Japan seizes the emerging opportunity, it could rapidly develop its own medical cannabis industry with an eye towards exports as well as for domestic consumption.

Whether declared or not, the race for supplying medical cannabis in East Asia has already begun.

Japan is in a unique situation with its huge elderly population, a monstrous national debt (235% of GDP), an increasing social security burden, a shrinking tax base, and, despite its stagnating economy, a strong aversion to allowing increased immigration.

The cannabis industry could go a long way to support elderly medical care, at the same time providing fresh and exciting business opportunities to reinvigorate the economy.

Japan’s elderly certainly need a lot of medical care: Japan was the fifth largest consumer of pharmaceutical drugs in the world in 2019, and this will only increase as the average age continues to rise.

After a long life working and supporting their communities, the elderly deserve to be looked after with the best possible level of care. Looking to the future, legalizing medical cannabis is absolutely the smart and compassionate thing to do, medically and economically.

In 2020, 378,356 people died of cancer in Japan, according to a Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare report. This accounts for 27.6% of all deaths.

Bizarrely, the Japanese government owns about a third of the stock in Japan Tobacco (JT), the nation’s largest producer of cigarettes.

Essentially, the Japanese government itself is in the tobacco business, selling an extremely addictive drug proven to cause not only cancer, but also heart disease, stroke, lung disease, diabetes, and chronic diseases like emphysema.

The government—namely the Ministry of Finance—collects profits on dividends and on tobacco taxes, all the while strictly prohibiting cannabis, a substance known to improve the quality of life of cancer patients.

The Japanese public’s lack of awareness or indifference to this situation is disheartening.

After all, it is well established that cannabis can effectively treat the side effects of cancer and cancer treatments by stimulating the appetite and removing feelings of nausea, as well as acting as a general pain reliever.

In 2016, terminal cancer patient Masamitsu Yamamoto, 58, a former chef, was arrested for growing cannabis. He had tried everything and cannabis was the only remedy that significantly improved his quality of life.

After he was arrested and his medical cannabis taken away, his condition quickly worsened and he died before his trial had even concluded.

Consider: The government was directly profiting from tobacco sales while condemning Yamamoto to a world of pain and suffering by confiscating his one and only effective medicine.

Legalizing medical cannabis can put an end to this kind of unnecessary tragedy.

But there is a less dramatic aspect that also needs to be better appreciated—all cannabis use is medical, or at least it has a medical aspect to it.

Its most basic medical function, even more basic than pain relief, is stress relief. Stress weakens the immune system and becomes an underlying factor in the onset of many illnesses.

Cannabis relieves stress without the negative health effects of alcohol, the go-to method of self-medication in sake-happy Japan.

Cannabis isn’t just for fighting certain diseases and medical conditions, it is for overall health and mental health maintenance; it is a non-toxic, medicinal herb with a history of use stretching back at least 2,500 years.

Alcohol causes many people to engage in wild and reckless behavior. Cannabis is pretty much the exact opposite: it relaxes, it soothes, it refreshes.

In this sense, the Cannabis Control Act only manages to prevent people from being able to choose a safer, healthier alternative to alcohol.

If the average salaryman or salarywoman went home after work and smoked a joint instead of drinking with co-workers, their health would be better, their family life would be better, and their quality of life would be much improved.

The main objection to cannabis use provided by the government’s anti-cannabis propaganda is that it supposedly causes mental problems like schizophrenia and paranoia.

In truth, some studies have shown that it may trigger the onset of schizophrenia in people already predisposed to it. However, more recent studies dispute that claim. In either case, it absolutely does not cause schizophrenia.

On the contrary, due to its superb stress reduction properties, many people throughout the world consider it vital in maintaining their mental health.

Japan is a country that literally invented a word for dying from overwork, karoshi. It also has a suicide problem. Suicide is the leading cause of death in men between the ages of 20-44 and women between the ages of 15-34.

Clearly, with the terrible pressure to conform and perform that people face from society, more attention should be paid to mental health and how to improve it.

Stress causes mental problems; cannabis relieves stress: It’s really that simple.

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