I had such a weird feeling when I learned that one of Japan’s celebrities was arrested due to having cannabis and the media did a live broadcast of it using a helicopter in Tokyo, Japan, because in the country where I am living, Canada, it is legal to take marijuana from 2018.
I don’t mean that I sympathized with him since he broke Japanese law. Japan has its own laws and people who are living in Japan have to follow them and once they go against it, they should be judged by the law.
However, at the same time, I realized that deciding whether things are good or bad (legal or illegal) depends on the people who make the rules (laws). In Japan, before ending WWII, cannabis was legal, even meth was legal too, but now, they are illegal.
There are nine marijuana-friendly countries and regions in the world and Canada is one of them. I heard many Canadians were against cannabis being legal due to safety and educational reasons. To be honest, I’m not interested in taking cannabis and I don’t care if it’s legal or illegal. However, according to some research, it influences short-term memory badly, so I just don’t want to take unnecessary substances in my body.
After new laws for cannabis were enacted, some related shops opened in Toronto. Pedestrians cannot see inside the shops and security guards check customers’ ID in front of the entrance. I heard the number of customers is smaller than government’s expectation but I can see always some people in line, so not so many people go to the store, yet there are moderate demands.
One of the shops in Toronto is called “Tokyo Smoke” and it makes me remember that weird feeling again. Enjoying cannabis means being arrested in Tokyo, Japan.
Anyway, I don’t care, as long as Canada can keep a safe environment and people can enjoy their own lives.
(original Japanese ver is here)
