[Nagged]

I genuinely like Japan, but every time I read stuff like this I have to wonder.

[Robato]

Im sorry, but I would never take someone elses bag through customs. Not even in the US. The first thing they ask you before you even get on a plane is "where you around your bag at all times? Has anyone else used your bag while you may or may not have been watching? Has anyone put a bomb, drugs or any other illegal object in your bag?"

His "friend" even said that he knew all along that there were drugs in there.

Everybody is tricked into breaking the law. The prisons all around the world, even where people get a "fair" trial, are full of "innocents" and "I didnt do its"

Even if he didnt commit this crime, it has proved to the world that you shouldnt carry someone elses shit through customs. I know for a damn fact that I will NOT EVEN touch anothers bag in the airport in Japan now.

I have to add that I had a friend who visited a friends house (in the US)...while he was there, the FBI busted in and arrested his friend for cocain.....my friend is doing 5 years just because he was visiting a friend of his, whose house had a ton of coke in it at the time of his visiting. I say choose your friends wisely as trouble will find you even if you are not looking for trouble. (wrong place, wrong time is a bitch)

[Watcher]

Here, here. What the hell was he doing carrying another guys bag through customs. I mean, c'mon, really now, how much money was he gonna be paid for doing such a thing. I get the feeling that we're not being told the whole story.
Then again it was only for a couple of dime bags of grass... sure prices here are high but... hey wait! Maybe those baggies were for looking at and not consumption just like the famed shrooms of yesteryear (still available if you go to the right shops

[Nagged]

I must admit I am a little biased against the justice system in Japan, what with all the Amnesty attention and the recent revelations about the jails in the news. (Let's not forget all the dismissed lawsuits for war damages also)

I've never had problems with the police here, (even when nabbed once for speeding and another time for not stopping at a stop sign, on both occasions the police were professional and courteous, and treated me just like everyone else. Mind you I was just as polite to them also)

However, assuming what is written on the website is true, disregarding evidence is a no go, and also the police have a reputation of placing too much emphasis on confessions as proof of guilt. Don't take my word for it, there are plenty of Japanese citizens languishing in jail cells with only flimsy evidence as grounds for their incarceration.

Obviously, anyone caught carrying drugs is going to protest their innocence. I saw the reverse situation on TV the other day where a Japanese man was being held overseas for exactly the same thing (of course the media here seemed very eager to prove that he was innocent)

There is no easy solution. Perhaps people caught should be deported to their own country for justice. Even if they were the genuine article, unless they are very stupid indeed, they would think twice about doing the same thing again.

[Steve Bildermann]

Japan's drug laws: definitely a case-by-case proposition

Few sights are more loathsome in the eyes of our society reporter, Bill Hersey, than the encroachment upon Tokyo's nightlife scene by drug pushers. How, he rhetorically asks, did these scumbags ever get the idea that Japan would look tolerantly upon their nefarious activities?

Well, maybe the thinking of these scofflaws has been influenced by the government's contradictory approach to high-profile users, as well as by the public's often forgiving attitude towards the same.

Four years ago, Japan decided not to grant an entry visa to soccer superstar Diego Maradona, thus putting the kibosh on a sold-out series of practice matches here between Japan teams and World Cup players from Argentina. Madarona had been convicted of drug use and, as a former Tokyo-based foreign correspondent writes in a recent book, "nobody who has a record of drug convictions can be admitted to Japan."

http://www.weekender.co.jp/new/020503/behind_the_scenes-020503.html