Japan still tough on pot laws

Unlike other nations, it’s fighting influx of cannabis-friendly info

KOBE, Japan — From an early age, Japanese society had conditioned Takayuki Miyabe to fear marijuana. But that was before his infant daughter was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy.

Desperately scouring the internet for a cure, he came upon an unexpected savior: a derivative of cannabis called CBD. During a business trip to California, he bought a tiny amber bottle of the elixir, hoping for a miracle.

Miyabe wasn’t disappointed. Weeks after his daughter began her treatments, her seizures stopped. “My thinking on marijuana did a 180,” he said.

Now he and his wife are developing their own CBD oil, joining the growing ranks of Japanese entrepreneurs eager to sell the product to consumers long taught to shun anything related to cannabis.

As most other major economies liberalize their laws on marijuana amid growing evidence of its medical benefits, Japan has doubled down on its hard-line position toward the drug, ramping up arrests and increasing efforts to battle the influx of marijuana-friendly information from abroad with public awareness campaigns and tougher laws.

But proponents in Japan hope that CBD — which has some proven medical benefits but none of marijuana’s intoxicating effects — can become a gateway to the so-called gateway drug.

CBD is legal in Japan, thanks to a regulatory loophole, and its purported properties — ranging from suppressing inflammation to encouraging relaxation and sleep — make it an attractive product. Analysts estimate that annual demand for the supplement in Japan could grow to $800 million by 2024.

For entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on the “green rush” sparked by the loosening of marijuana laws in North America and Europe, Japan is a beguiling market. The world’s third-largest economy and grayest society, the country offers an ideal demographic: health-conscious, aging consumers with abundant disposable income and a bottomless appetite for supplements that promise to balm their ills.

But Japan also has some of the most restrictive cannabis laws in East Asia, a region known for its intolerance of drugs.

Japan’s censorious attitude toward cannabis is relatively recent, said Junichi Takayasu, who runs a museum on the subject north of Tokyo. There is no evidence that the plant was used in the past to get high, but hemp long figured in Japanese religious rituals, where it was valued as a symbol of purity. And it was a vital industrial crop for the resourcepoor country, used to make fabric and rope through the end of World War II. Occupying American forces encouraged legislation effectively banning cultivation of the plant as well as the possession or use of its leaves or flowers, as well as anything made from them.

Today, only about 20 farmers are licensed to produce the crop.

While authorities haven’t exactly encouraged the CBD industry, they largely view it as benign. Companies first began selling the product around 2013 after noticing that it fell under a legal loophole allowing the importation of products made from cannabis stems and stalks, as long as they are THC-free.

Sales have grown rapidly since. Today, chic Tokyo cafes sell oils, gummies and beer made with CBD.

OKAHARA/THE NEW YORK TIMES KOSUKE Takayuki Miyabe holds his daughter Karen, whose seizures from a rare form of epilepsy are treated with CBD oil. Also seen are his wife, Keiko, and daughter, Yuri, on Sept. 25 in Kobe, Japan. The Miyabes are developing their own line of CBD oil.