In an emergency situation due to COVID-19 infection, Japan's first trial over the legality of Ayahuasca has begun.
However, even if you tell most Japanese about this, almost no one knows about the hallucinogenic plants used by the indigenous peoples of South America. Also, Japan and other non-Western countries have not experienced psychedelic counterculture, so even if you have heard the name psychedelic, you can only recognize it as a kind of dangerous drug in general.
I thought it wouldn't be understood in Japan, so I contacted Westerners, but they asked whether Daime or UDV was sued. It's not such a systematic trial. A young plant nerd man was arrested and charged with selling a DMT plant that grows naturally in Japan online. And when I explain that, it makes them wonder again.
Even if it is illegal, why would it be prosecuted and brought to justice? In developed countries in Europe and the United States, such personal buying and selling is common, and it's not good but there are too many other crimes and they have no time to be involved. Even in Japan, where there are few crimes, the situation is not so different. At best, he will be warned, or even if he is arrested, he will not be prosecuted. Arresting without warning is not a good idea.
Aoi sold a herb that was said to be effective against depression through the Internet, and a college student who bought and drank it suffered health problems, so he was sued under the Pharmaceutical Machinery Law. Defendant Aoi is the perpetrator and college student is the victim. At first I thought so, but it wasn't. Both Aoi and college student were accused of violating the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act. The college student, who was supposed to be the victim, was said to have been an accomplice to Aoi. I was dissatisfied with this.
So why was he charged? I don't know, and that's exactly the mystery of this case. The Japanese judiciary is called precision judiciary, and detailed investigations are conducted between the time of arrest and the time of prosecution. Therefore, I learned that 99.9% of the accused were convicted. The trial is a strict ritual act. This precisely completed system has protected the extremely stable society of postwar Japan.
This is just my reasoning, but it seems that a young prosecutor, who is still inexperienced, has prosecuted a suspect who should not be prosecuted. However, she was loyal to her mission, just because she was inexperienced. Since most drug crimes in Japan are stimulants, I think DMT may have been mistaken for a new type of stimulant. It is a mistake due to youth, which should be fully taken into consideration and has room for rehabilitation. If I write so, the prosecutor and the accused will be reversed for some reason. But that's not the case. Since the public prosecutor's office is a public organization, the failure of individual members will be the negligence of the entire organization. You cannot blame the individual who faithfully performed the mission.
Defendants, on the other hand, they would normally be remorseful and suspended, meaning that they would be virtually acquitted, but he says his actions were a relief for the sick. He will not give up. However, there is no strong religious passion there. Since trial is a sport that complies with the rules of law, he continues to fight with the logic that we must play fair. In short, he does not dispute the precision system itself that has guaranteed Japan's security. Rather, it can be said that he is paying respect.
This complete bureaucracy, 99.9% precision system, acts as a very good safety device while it is operating normally, but 0.1% malfunction is unexpected. The more detailed the system, the more vulnerable it is that it cannot respond to unexpected situations.
The transcendental world of psycho-developing drugs poses a potential danger that threatens the maintenance of secular social order. However, this time, the nation did not crack down on the danger. Therefore, the issue is ambiguous.
Here, I want to record the incident as objectively as possible. This case is difficult to describe in an easy-to-understand story, such as the fight against unjustified crackdowns by state power, the sadness of victims, the mystery of detective novels, and the madness of cult religion. The reader may find it boring, but that kind of lack of narrative may be the story of modern Japanese and younger generations of culture.
For example, the tea developed by Defendant Aoi is not South American Ayahuasca tea. It is Ayahuasca analog. It is a combination of plants that also grow as weeds, such as acacia and mimosa, and MAOI supplements that can be imported individually. It looks like an ad hoc combination of herbs and chemicals in different contexts, but in fact it is the most rational bricolage of familiar things.
Even though it is objectively boring, it is an interpretation from the perspective of a Japanese, middle-aged man, and anthropologist. There may be a rich undeciphered meaning behind this case, but I may have overlooked it. That is why I want to make this record public. I hope that people from many cultures, or future people, will read this case in a different paradigm than I do, and if possible, discuss it together.
22-03-2021/2564 (C) Tatsu Hirukawa
