Pubdate: Mon, 19 Aug 2002
Source: Newsweek (US)
Copyright: 2002 Newsweek, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.msnbc.com/news/NW-front_Front.asp
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/309
Author: Chris O'Connell
Note: This article is from the Newsweek International edition.

A PSYCHEDELIC SUMMER

Japan's Drug Culture Is Experiencing A Dizzying New High

The man behind the counter, who calls himself Carlos, offers a baggie full
of dried Mexican sage. "Just like pot," he says, "only more hallucinations."
In his head shop, located on the eighth floor of a nondescript building,
kids too young to drive peruse blown-glass pipes and Moroccan hookahs. A
display case holds eight metal saucers with different powders fashionable at
raves and clubs the world over. One of them, called alpha-methyltryptamine,
or AMT, "is just like mushrooms," Carlos offers. Another, blue mystic,
reputedly mimics the effects of ecstasy and LSD.

AMSTERDAM? MAYBE. BUT Tokyo? Long known for its no-nonsense drug
enforcement, Japan is in the midst of a psychedelic summer. Most of the
fantasy fuels remain legal because of loopholes in local drug laws. Even
contraband is easily procured. Nearly every weekend barefoot ravers flock to
the slopes of Mount Fuji to trip all night and view the peak at dawn. Could
this be the country that jailed Paul McCartney in 1980 for stashing
marijuana in his guitar case? Or recently threatened to bar Argentine
football legend and convicted cocaine user Diego Maradona from entering the
country to comment on the World Cup finals? None other, according to fliers
for trance-music shows and new magazines that explain how best to cultivate
and score various chemicals. One cover line captures the mood perfectly. It
reads: drug happy brain!

The party was supposed to end on June 6, when Japan's Health Ministry banned
"magic mushrooms." The fungus had been traded freely for more than a decade
due to a loophole in the 1990 Narcotics Control Law that banned the sale of
its active ingredient, psilocybin, but not commerce in the 'shrooms
themselves. The oversight remained a secret guarded by aging hippies until
the late 1990s, when head shops and street vendors sprouted up in Tokyo to
peddle mushrooms for profit. Then came the overdoses, media attention and
eventual revision of the law. But that has done little to stop the kids or
the chemists. The Health Ministry's exasperation was apparent when it issued
a statement in April saying, "The methods of abuse have become diverse and
ingenious, and we can make no guess about how we should respond to that."

A cornucopia of mind-bending substances remain legal in Japan. Rave
enthusiasts go for variants of ecstasy and mushrooms. Three thousand yen, or
about $25, garners 15 milligrams of AMT, which users snort cocaine style or
drink with liquid. For one of Japan's cheapest highs, teenagers opt for an
amber liquid marketed variously as warp speed, rave or hop. But real bargain
hunters buy it in its original form as VCR head cleaner. Blue mystic, a.k.a.
tweetybird mescaline, will be added to the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration's list of controlled substances this week after being linked
to several deaths in the States. It remains legal in Japan.

The popularity of legal hallucinogens hasn't dented a thriving illicit-drug
trade. Most addicts in Japan inhale solvents or pop methamphetamines, called
shabu . A recent U.S. government survey of drug trends in Asia estimated
that more than 2 million Japanese use shabu, and some 600,000 are hooked. In
Shibuya, Tokyo's supreme teen hangout, dealers sell pot and cocaine on the
street with scant fear of arrest. Keiji Oda, founder of the Guardian Angels
in Japan, estimates that dealers sell upwards of $50,000 worth of drugs
every night on a single block of the neighborhood. Cops are hamstrung when
it comes to making actual arrests, says Hiroshi Kubo, a journalist in Tokyo:
"Because of laws, police cannot search drug dealers without consent."

By all accounts, Tokyo's drug culture is in full bloom. The marijuana leaf
now competes with Hello Kitty for T-shirt space in teenage closets. Drug
imagery has crept into rap lyrics. And among today's trendiest bands are
acts like AMT and the Dope Fiends. In one downtown McDonald's recently,
three teenage boys prepared to toke a marijuana substitute in a nearby park.
One, sporting a David Beckham Mohawk, betrayed a nervousness he shared with
his friends. "We don't know what it's going to do to us," he said. With the
marketplace for drugs moving faster than government officials, Japan's
teenagers will still be experimenting long after summer has gone.
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