Japan Stays Tough on Cannabis as Other Nations Loosen Up

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.

Mr. 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 line of CBD oil, joining the growing ranks of Japanese entrepreneurs eager to sell the product to consumers long taught to shun anything related to cannabis.

It won’t be easy. 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. [Read more at The New York Times]