Japan's hemp business wants to distance itself from image of narcotics

The announcement that the amount of marijuana in liquid form seized by customs officials in Tokyo in 2020 soared nearly 70 times from the previous year has attracted headlines in a country that still operates a zero-tolerance policy on all forms of narcotics. For Junichi Takayasu, founder of the Hemp Museum, the dramatic media coverage of the figures is deeply unfortunate.

All too often, he says, the Japanese media, local authorities, the police and public simply conflate cannabis with hemp, a crop that has a history that stretches back centuries in Japan, and which Takayasu would like to see once again flourishing in the fields.