Talk:Japan

Talk

Discussion for: Japan • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope

Japan is about cannabis in Japan. Its cannabis material is legal: the 1948 Act, renamed in 2023 the Act on Regulation of Cultivation of Cannabis Plants, and the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act, which has governed cannabis other than its cultivation since December 2024, with one hemp seed line from Hokkaido sold by ACE Seeds. Most of its sections are stubs.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Infobox fields

Legal status. "Illegal (medical and industrial use regulated)" with 2023, the year of the amending act, Act No. 84 of 2023. The amendment produces the current status: it made cannabis a narcotic under the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act, applied that Act's offence of use to it, made medicines manufactured from the plant usable, set residual THC limits for products and divided the cultivation licences by purpose. The year is the amendment's, not that of its entry into force (12 December 2024, and 1 March 2025 for the licences), as on other country pages, which take the statute's year.
Enforcement. "Licensed cultivation for products, medicines and research; possession and use are criminal offences" follows the three licences in force since 1 March 2025 (Type 1 for the raw materials of products, Type 2 for the raw materials of medicines, research) and the Narcotics Act's offences.

Sources

The current law is cited to the Japanese texts in the government's e-Gov law database, as in force on 16 October 2026: the Act on Regulation of Cultivation of Cannabis Plants (Act No. 124 of 1948, the version in force from 1 June 2025), the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act (Act No. 14 of 1953, the version in force from 1 October 2026), the Order for Enforcement of the cultivation Act (Cabinet Order No. 282 of 2024: the 0.3 per cent standard and the two commencement dates), its Enforcement Ordinance (ministerial ordinance No. 140 of 2024: the product list and the seed treatments) and the Cabinet Order No. 238 of 1990 (article 2: the residual THC quantities). The current texts' penalty is 拘禁刑 (kōkinkei), the single penalty of imprisonment in force since 1 June 2025; the page gives it as "imprisonment".
The amendment's aims are cited to the government's own English outline of Act No. 84 of 2023 (Japanese Law Translation), which matches the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Japanese summary of the bill. The date from which everything but cultivation moved to the Narcotics Act is cited to the Ministry's notice of 5 November 2024 to prefectures. The promulgation date is the House of Councillors bill record.
The 1948 Act in its 1999 text is cited to the government's English translation (Japanese Law Translation), current only to Act No. 160 of 22 December 1999. The page uses it for that text alone: the former licence classes and bars, and the earlier penalties.
Masataka and colleagues (Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research 11(3): 284–292, 2026; online 9 June 2025) is cited for the amendment's place in the Act's history and its reading of the medical framework and the new penalties for use. Every statement attributed to it is in its abstract.
ACE Seeds. The statements on Hokkaido (the prefecture that has traditionally grown the most cannabis, wild plants and annual eradication) are the vendor's, as its listing is recorded on ACE-JPN-HOK-0120190001. The listing names no site within the island.

Source discrepancies

The date of Act No. 124 of 1948. The English translation heads the Act "Act No. 124 of July 7, 1948"; e-Gov gives its promulgation date as 10 July 1948. The page keeps the translation's date, cited to it. The two may record different events (passage and promulgation); neither source says which.

Statements removed and why

That the 1948 Act is "among the oldest still in force anywhere": no source ranks it.
"The wiki documents one Japanese accession" and "The cannabis the wiki documents is northern": statements about the wiki's holdings.
The Conservation status paragraphs: "the one country in this corpus" compared the wiki's holdings across countries, and the reading of the 2023 amendment (that it "widens what a licensed grower may do" and sets a THC threshold "that a traditional landrace population has no reason to satisfy") was the article's own. See Open questions.
The lead's summary of the 2023 amendment in Masataka and colleagues' words ("a stringent tetrahydrocannabinol threshold"), which was in the wiki's voice. The lead now gives the amendment's measures from the government's outline; the review's reading stays in Legal status, attributed.

Open questions

Conservation status is a section stub. No source assessing Japanese landrace cannabis has been found. A Type 1 cultivator must now grow from seed or other material of plants at or below 0.3 per cent delta-9-THC by dry weight; whether that standard affects landrace hemp has not been assessed by any source found.
Medicines. The law now allows medicines manufactured from cannabis to be used; whether any has been approved in Japan is not established.
Demographics and History are section stubs. The ritual and textile role of hemp in Shinto practice, and Japan's substantial hemp history before 1948, are widely asserted in popular writing but have not been traced to citable sources.
Agriculture is a section stub. The figures repeated in popular sources (more than 25,000 cannabis farms before 1948; about 50 licensed growers now) have not been traced. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's licensing returns are the place to start.
Preparations and consumption is a section stub. The one accession is a hemp line, not a drug-type one.
Trade and commerce is a section stub. No figures on the licensed sector, the value of the hemp crop or the market created by the 2023 amendment have been found; Masataka and colleagues write that the amendment's practical implications remain to be seen.