Constructing a New Crime for Cannabis Use in Japan: Focusing on the Relationship between the Media Coverage and Criminalization

• In Event: Social media and crime & EU Policy Evaluation

Abstract

In Japan, a bill was passed to legalize the use of cannabis-derived medicines while criminalizing other self-use of cannabis. As a result of the reform, cannabis is categorized as a " Narcotic " under the "Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Control Act," and its self-use and possession will be prohibited and punished under the Act. Cannabis has been controlled by the Cannabis Control Act. Since there was no law to punish self-use of cannabis under Japan's Cannabis Control Act, and only possession was considered as a crime, this means that a new crime is being constructed.

This paper focuses on media coverage of the process leading up to the construction of the new crime. Before the discussion of criminalization began, the increase in statistics on the number of arrests for violations of the Cannabis Control Act was reported, and the media emphasized the spread of cannabis among young people. Thus, cannabis use by young people became a "social problem". Even after the discussion began, arrests of students and celebrities for possession of cannabis were widely reported.
I would like to explore the relationship between the construction of the new crime and its media coverage.

Author

• Midori Yoshida, Chuo University （Graduate School of Law）