Tokyo School principal arrested for pot possession
 

The principal of one of Tokyo's most prestigious international elementary schools was arrested yesterday for attempting to import marijuana from the US.

Shirley Lane, who is 59 years old, is the principal for the International School of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo. Also arrested was her husband, who is 62 years old.

The Sacred Heart school is one of Tokyo's most well-known schools. The children of many foreign diplomats and business people attend school at Sacred Heart, and even members of the Emperor's family have studied there.

After hearing the story, I couldn't help but be amazed at the stupidity of these people. They only arrived in Japan a couple of months ago, and only had time to get settled-in here. Now they are sitting in separate jail cells at the detention center in Shinagawa. After another week or so they'll see the magistrate, and he'll order them instantly deported, and banned from ever returning. They'll be taken from the jail to the airport, and put on a plane back to America with only the clothes on their backs. They won't be allowed to call any of their friends or associates, nor will they be allowed to return to their home to collect their personal belongings before they leave.

Once again, if anyone reading this wants to come to Japan one day, leave the dope at home.

...and this is the first thread I read after youtubing Tool's "The Pot"

Ya musta been...hiiiigh....

Wow, very stupid -- on so many different levels.


Just goes to show, though, that people you would never have expected actually use "pot"


It's a victimless crime and is no more dangerous than other ready-available, legal drugs. It's a shame that you can be put in jail for possessing plant material.

Well in some places its not as harsh, such as out here in California.
Seems like anyone can get a med card to buy it legally,
all they need is a phony symptom and $70.


I think these people deserved it in this situation.
Moving to a foreign country and breaking the law is stupidity at it's best.
The series 'Locked-Up Abroad' comes to mind.

Oh yeah, i thought of it too Jay, great series ^_^

Total idiots!

If I were to hired to a high paying and high profile position at a prestigious school in Japan and I was told reading Time magazine was illegal and if I were caught reading Time magazine I would be arrested, deported, publicly embarrassed, and probably end my career then guess what I would do?

find another job?

uhhh..............I would quit reading Time magazine.

Not participate in a strawman argument?

Maybe he hated the school, infiltrated it as its principal
and then do something like that to give the school a bad reputation :p

Keep talking.

You mean she.

I meant the news article should be looked at on its own merits and details, instead of wandering off in a hypothetical direction bearing little resemblance to the facts.

tl;dr Time Magazine is not illegal, pot is.

Sorry, Koir, I am not sure what you are accusing me of. This woman and her husband are idiots for trying to import marijuana into a country where it is extremely illegal.

What is "wandering off" is arguing the merits or harmlessness of marijuana, because in Japan, it just doesn't matter.

It's not really 'wandering off', because the illegality of a harmless drug is the real problem.


Japanese can get shamelessly and dangerously drunk, but the thought of marijuana is social-blasphemy.



This is a great analogy. Telling someone what to read is just as ridiculous as telling them what they can/can't consume.

If this principal and her husband were arrested for trying to change the drug laws or for promoting the legalization of marijuana in Japan, then I would call it injustice.

But they were arrested for committing a crime everyone knows is very illegal in Japan and very frowned upon. They are also 1) in a very high profile position and 2) non-citizens. Two more reasons why committing this crime, or any crime, is stupid.

The reason for my analogy with Time magazine was this, given such a highly-regarded and surely high-paying position I would probably be willing to give up certain things in order to keep it. If I was being hired and the school said "You can't read Time magazine if you want to be principal here," I would probably say "Fine. No more Time magazine."

Exactly; it doesn't matter about the country or wether ganja should be legalised or not. If she'd been working for a high profile school in London and had been caught smuggling, she'd be in very hot water, just the same. It doesn't matter what the substance is either, the fact that she is a public figure in a position of respect, and she's abused it by how she chose to act. If she were drunk at work, she'd get fired and if she were fired, her visa sponsorship would likely be withdrawn and then she would be deported. That's not illegal, but an abuse of trust nonetheless. The fact that pot is illegal in Japan just landed her with a spell in a cell on top of things.

This is true, and was surely a stupid decision. It's a shame.

But seriously, as the OP said, they were 59 and 62 years old at the time. It's not as though they were in the business of selling the stuff. Who's to say? Maybe it was used for a particular medical condition that couldn't be treated otherwise.


Do you think they will serve jail time?


In general: It's tragic that a government would punish the elderly for possessing dried plant material [That has proven medicinal benefits]. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem a little, unnatural?


In reality: Don't bring drugs into Japan, there are plenty more entertaining things to do.

59 and 62 are not considered "elderly." Whether it was medicinal or recreational doesn't matter, they are both illegal in Japan, and these people knew it.

I doubt there will ever be a trial. They will sit in jail until their paperwork is processed (week or two) and then be put on the next flight to their home country with a stamp in their passport saying they are not allowed re-entry into Japan.

You can describe marijuana as "dried plant material" in the same way you could describe anthrax as a "soft white powder".

The government isn't punishing anyone for carrying "dried plant material", they are punishing people for knowingly breaking the law. Is a crime less repugnant because of someone's age? If you were hit by a car driven by a 70 year old drunk driver, should the be treated any differently than if they were 30?

The benefits or otherwise of marijuana are not relevant in this situation. This school principle will not be sent to jail, she'll simply be deported after 10 days in a holding cell (like all the other foreign potheads are), and banned from ever returning. Once she arrives in America, she'll likely face federal charges because she and her husband used the US Post Office to transport the marijuana. Her case will probably be plead to a misdemeanor, but she's likely to lose her American teaching license.

if she is so stupid as to try and post pot then she has no business teaching anyone really, regardless of what the pot was used for. it might as well have been nutmeg into certain countries that outlaw nutmeg in certain quantities.

werent teachers meant to teach you how to, at the very least, do some research?

In fairness to the Japanese government, I think I can see why they're strict about allowing pot into their country even in small amounts.

In the UK for example, it's quite easy to do a fly over with thermal cameras and find which houses are ganja-farms because they light up like beacons from all the heat-lamps. In places Australia, this is much more difficult because obviously it's a much hotter climate and the hot spots blend in. Japan thus far hasn't had a history of pot being a common place, easy to obtain drug, and I don't think it's unfair that they want to keep it that way.

If they relaxed on it, it would be easy in some areas of Japan for this hidden cell farms to boom, making their job of regulating the trade a lot more difficult. It would also send out a message to the criminal community that drug running was an unspoken OK and the government would turn a blind eye. Given how that sort of thing is rife and fuels a lot of violence in other asian countries, that would lead Japan into the same generic dis-reputation that it tries very hard to distance itself from.

this is getting away from the stupid teacher topic, but a big part of japan's anti pot thing and its whole pot being a gateway drug thing is very similar to the west's attitudes in say the 50's. its not just about pot etc, but about quite a few things.

but then that might be because people who grew up in the 50's are now such a big part of the community that every thing caters to, that the attitudes still exist. but had this story taken place elsewhere, like say america, i believe the outrage would have been the same.

having said that, drugs are more widespread here than the media would have you believe, theyre much more expensive, but theyre there,..... and as they say, the more the old people make something wrong, the more fun it is to do.

i know what you mean. its all natural, just tax it like tabbaco or alcahol!

The question isn`t whether the law is justified or not. It`s that it is a very obvious law (not something they just didn`t know about) - it was complete common sense. They broke the law in a foreign country when they most definitely should have known better. These people should have been able to live without for the length of their contract - I mean, it isn`t physically addictive right? They were stupid to break the law in a foreign country - that is all that matters.

If the law were something that you could simply not know about or forget about by habit - like the Time magazine example - I could excuse them in a way for breaking it. But this is in a completely different category - there is no room for excuses. They knowingly broke the law in a country known for VERY strongly enforcing that law. The law itself does not matter in this case.

I guess it's on a par then to that British couple who were stupid enough to have sex on a public beach in a muslim country and then wondered why they got arrested. Oh, and then tried to pretend that wasn't what they were doing. 9__9;

Cannabis has grown both domestically and wildly in Japan from the Neolithic Jomon period (10,000 to 300 BC) to present times. The term "Jomon" itself means "pattern of ropes", which were likely made of hemp.



This is flawed.


If they relaxed on it, why would it make regulating more difficult? After all, they are relaxed.

Legalizing it would eliminate the illegal trade -- considering it wouldn't be illegal. Look through-out History, prohibition never works.






Despite everything I've said, this surely sums it up :D

Prohibition is working in Japan, and it is working admirably. Japan doesn't have heroin or crack addicts selling their bodies so they can get enough money for another fix or hit. The jails are not full of dealers and other drug violators, and thousands of people aren't being killed here every year in gang wars.

Japan doesn't give offenders a slap on the wrist, then turn them free to break more laws. Offenders are seriously punished, their names are published, and they are scorned.

BTW, the picture you posted shows an Edo-period Japanese woman holding a tobacco pipe.

I have to agree with Sangetsu. There are several reasons why it is true, but the drug laws in the US are not as successful as in Japan. Partially it is geography, politics and social attitudes, but the strict laws in Japan have helped keep it a country that is not full of drug addicts, dealers, rehab clinics and people committing crimes like robbery and prostitution to get drug money on the scale it happens in the US.

I don't have world statistics, but I would think that Japan's drug policy could be considered on the more successful side.

anyone being arrested over marijuana in any country is ridiculous. its more natural than alcohol with a less mortality rate.

Hemp cannabis and Marijuana are two very different plants albeit related. Marijuana is mid-sized and bushy whereas hemp is much taller with long fibrous stalks ideal for rope and cloth making. It contains less than 1% of the active ingredient which causes a high. Marijuana, in contrast, can be up to 30% active, and has softer fibers which makes it better for drying and smoking. Even if there were old cultivars had a higher degree of cannabinoids, the true drug still came mostly from China and India, making it to a degree a foreign import.

And getting rid of the problem by getting rid of the law is backwards thinking. We could solve problems of school truancy by making it legal for kids to walk out at any age, but it wouldn't be an effective solution to the problem.