Hemp Cultivation in Japan
Hemp Cultivation in Japan
The situation in Japan:
New article from http://www.taima.org:
Hemp harvest in Nagano
Cultivation of Industrial Hemp in Japan The acknowledgment degree of hemp rises in the latter half of 1998.
Information on hemp came to be known to a lot of people for several years in Japan. In it, there are chiefly three factors. One is that the first hemp restaurant in Japan opened a store by the Shimo-Kitazawa of Tokyo on August 15,'98. The name is cafe restaurant "ASA(in Japanese Hemp). " The region of Shimo-Kitazawa is always crowded with young person. The town is known in the place with a lot of unique shops. Mr. Maeta is managing the cafe restaurant "ASA". Mr. Maeta started a hemp special general shop of the name "TAIMADO" for three years in the town. The atmosphere of the shop is Japanese style. It is not a doubtful, strange atmosphere in hemp so far. This cafe-restaurant is an unusual point to be able to do the eating as for hemp seed. Therefore, it appears to various magazines, the radios, and the televisions of Japan. Moreover, this shop establishes the homepage by using the Internet. It is a valuable scene where hemp information on Japan is obtained, and a very popular homepage.
The dish is as follows. Hemp pizza, hemp spaghetti, hemp bread, hemp croquette, hemp bean curd, hemp milk, hemp hamburgers, steak, and hemp ice cream, Rice gruel of hemp vegetables which used hemp dressing "Hemp seed" is all used for various menus.
In Japan, there is the world where the example is not seen in various foreign countries and all dishes are gourmet countries which can do the eating. However, there was no chance to eat hemp up to being able to do this shop at all.
The second was to have telecasted with the television. It was November 15,'98. The program introduces the taking class to a environmental issue all over the world comprehensible on Sunday every week. The program was telecasted for 30 minutes by the title "Hemp saves the earth". The content of the program understood very much and was good at anther.
For instance, hemp was historically used as paper and a fiber crop, it was restricted as a narcotic drug, and cultivation was encouraged in the United States while fighting. It has been being introduced that the research to industrial use is advanced etc in Europe and Australia since 90's. Moreover, if hemp was grown in the farmland of 12% in Europe, it was introduced to be able to board the demand for paper in the world. However, hemp is a plant in Japan restricted by the law. Therefore, the story of these overseas cases emphasized an industrial hemp it in which the marihuana was not effective at the end of the program. How much influence power did this program have? The audience rating of this program was about 10%. This shows that about 10,000,000 Japanese saw the telecast. I think that the acknowledgment degree of hemp went up rapidly.
The third is that The Body Shop which was the natural sect make-up shop put cosmetics of the oil use for hemp seed on the market at the end on December, '98. The Body Shop increases sales in Japan next to Britain of the birthplace, and the number of shops exceeds 120.
The shop is suitable for nature and a healthy intention of young person, and very popular. It was a considerable impact that the shop had taken up Hemp. The poster of the leaf of hemp had decorated the shop and the show window at the time put on the market. Everyone who passed the shop front will have paid attention to the poster. Lip cream and skin care which used hemp became popular more than the forecast.There are factors other than three which has been described up to now, too. It is that clothes, the hat, and small articles made of hemp extended as a fashion in the apparel industry. The clothes shop is selling mixed of hemp and cotton to jeans and T-shirt now. The one made of hemp is increasing surely though all clothes do not become so. After that, a Japanese translation of "THE GREAT BOOK OF HEMP" was put on the market in June, '98. This book is valuable information which can know all of hemp.
Current state of cultivation in Japan There are results which have been grown as a fiber crop for 10,000 years or more, that is, the age of Jomon. It is clarified to have eaten the truth as then person puts on clothes of hemp from ruins of the age. To our regret, information on hemp is not sent so much by Japan. Therefore, a lot of people all over the world do not know a deep relation of the hemp with the Japanese.
Hemp is not only use as clothes and for food. For instance, the string of the bow of archery which is traditional sports of Japan is and there is a make-up rope of the Grand Sumo Tournament. Hemp has been used as a cord, various ropes, strings, and strings of clogs which a lot of people were putting on as shoes. In addition, it was used as a preservation bag of rice which was Japanese staple food and was indispensable to a religious event of the Shinto shrine.
However, the cannabis control law was enacted under GHQ under the United States occupation after World War II in 1948. As a result, the license which the prefecture governor delivered to grow hemp every year was needed. It felt that the farmer was the same as making of the cultivation of hemp the narcotic drug because of the licensing system degree. After that, the hemp products of the plant origin disappeared one after another by the spread of the life use goods of the oil origin in postwar days. And, the farmer who grows the hemp has decreased gradually.
The hemp agriculture of Japan was 4049.2 ha the total planted acreage of the fiber harvest and the seed harvest, and a scale of 25,118 people in 1950.
However, the planted acreage in 1996 was only 12.4 ha according to Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry today. Of that 12.0 ha was grown in Tochigi Prefecture, some 50 km north of Tokyo.There are only 102 hemp farmers. (From the Ministry of Health and Welfare Pharmaceutical and Medical Safety Bureau Narcotics Division as of January 1, 1999)
In the cultivation scale of today's hemp, the product is used very slightly as a string of the bow, a religious ceremony, and folk craft. Hemp is exactly cultivated species in the crisis of extermination in 50 years.
About the cannabis control law of Japan This law is located as one of five laws concerning the narcotic drug by the government. The five laws are as follows.
- Narcotic drug and psychotropic drug control law (enactment in 1990)
- Cannabis control law (enactment in 1948)
- Opium law (enactment in 1954)
- Stimulants Control Law (enactment in 1951)
- Law of special case corresponding to narcotic drug new agreement of 1991 years (enactment in 1991)
The cannabis control law is called a defect law. Because, it is not possible to discuss to an enough doing in the Diet at the confusion time just behind World War II it. Concretely, the definition of the kind of the managed hemp is wrong. If hemp is managed as a narcotic drug, it is necessary to describe the kind of Cannabis Indica.Rum clearly in the law. However, writing in the text of the law is only Cannabis sativa L. chiefly used as a fiber crop. In addition, there is surprising. It is that the purpose of the law does not write at all. This is a definite defect law. We are arrested by this law because of the possession of hemp. It is quite unrelated to that time whether the kind of hemp is a "Indica" or "Sativa". It is judged only by the presence of THC. In addition, when the doctor was about to use hemp as a medicine, this law is restricted by both doctor's application and the use of the patient. If the doctor uses hemp for the medicine in Japan, he can do nothing but first acquire the license of hemp and the medicine be administered to me. Indescribable is a foolish talk.
This law is obviously contradicted for an interesting person to hemp. However, a lot of citizens are convinced of hemp as the narcotic drug. There is hardly movement of abolishing the law because of consideration regardless of me for a lot of people.
Hemp cultivation is not prohibited fortunately at all by this present law. Then Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry negotiated on the cannabis control law with GHQ. As a result, hemp cultivation became a licensing system from an overall interdiction of the GHQ original bill. Hemp was a farm product indispensable for the Japanese to live at that time. In the text, it is with "Except stalk mature of the hemp grass and the product (The resin is excluded)". In a word, the use of the fiber of the seed and the stalk of hemp does not especially have the problem.
What do I have to do to grow hemp in Japan? "Hemp handling person license" which the prefecture governor delivers is needed. There are two kinds of "hemp handling person licenses".
"Cultivation license" This is a license for the farmer. "Researcher license" This is a license for the police to manage the hemp chiefly as a narcotic drug. There are 276 person researcher license . (From the Ministry of Health and Welfare Pharmaceutical and Medical Safety Bureau Narcotics Division as of January 1, 1999) Validity term ends on December 31 from the day to the year when the license was acquired. The update of each year is needed for the license. It currently costs a license application fee of 6700 yen (about $60, $1=110 yen).The law specifies that a license is to be denied to the following persons:
Those here who are poisoned indicate the person who cannot live socially.
- Those who are poisoned of narcotic drug, hemp or opium
- The one punished to punishment more than confinement
- Incompetent, quasi-incompetent person or minor
Acquisition flow chart of hemp handling person license Step 1. Securing of farmland of cultivation schedule
The agriculture of Japan decreases in the supporter, makes to aged, and is declining industry. Therefore, there are only 42% food self-support ratio of Japan. By law a person who is not a farmer cannot sell or buy farmland. Therefore, securing land is not easy. You might think cooperation with the farmer from old times. Because the prejudice that "hemp is a narcotic drug" has settled, it is necessary to explain the misunderstanding. However, there is a method which only and is good to secure the farmland. It is had cooperation with an organic farmer who comparatively has understanding and exists.
Step 2. Clarification of use of cultivation purpose and product If you are not a research purpose, and engage in farming, the application form submitted to the administration should choose either of the use of the seed and the fiber. There is especially no problem even if both are chosen. And, it is necessary to decide where to sell crops. Because, if there is no purchaser, it is not necessary to make, and the license need not be delivered to you.
Step 3. The outline of the license acquisition is explained in a prefecture administrative authorities. The pharmaceutical affair section and the Narcotics Division are having jurisdiction over "The cannabis control law". This post is literally usual to the management of hemp as a narcotic drug. You should have courage and say, "I want to grow hemp". Your speech might not be able to have understanding completely. However, the law admits the cultivation to harvest the seed and the fiber. Let's introduce an overseas case with hemp agriculture. Especially, France, Germany, Britain, and Canada, etc.
Step 4. The "hemp handling person license" application is submitted to administrative authorities. Doctor's attestation is needed if applying for the first time. You say, "I want doctor's attestation because of the license acquisition of the narcotic drug" in the hospital. You might be angry why it is necessary to do this. Let's endure starting only once like this because it is painful. In the current state, the following documents are needed.
- Application form which filled in grown purpose of application, cultivation person's name, and place and area
- Doctor's attestation
- Promissory letter because of no violation of law
- Customer's certificates (customer's corporation registry etc.)
Step 5. Inspection of growing area by administrative authorities
It is likely to come for the inspection to see what place to grow an industrial hemp. According to circumstances, this process might not exist.
These three standards exist as an interpretation of the law though are not described clearly in the law. This might need the farmland to be enclosed with the hedge.
- "Dread of drug abuse"
- "Problem on sanitation"
- "Dread of theft in management"
Step 6. The license is issued through a strict examination.
It takes about one month from submitting the application form to the issue of the license. Because they are perhaps unexampled, the administration might not issue the license. The person who applied for the license will fight in the court if the license is not issued. One is actually such a situation.
Problem and the future of hemp cultivation We cannot easily grow an industrial hemp because of the situation (a restriction of the law, an agriculture decline, and little hemp information). And, we become problems secure of the seed to grow an industrial hemp. Only the Agricultural Experiment Station in Tochigi Pref. (a region where hemp is still grown) breeds and is managing a low THC breed named "Tochigishiro". At present, this Agricultural Experiment Station is refusing the offer of the seed to the farmer outside the prefecture. Therefore, it is difficult to secure the seed of the low THC kind excluding Tochigi Pref.. We cannot import hemp seed in the law if not heat-treated so as not to germinate. We do not become movements to revive cultivation in this Japan easily as long as this problem is not solved.
However, there is bright movement, too. International minor cereals food symposium is held in Japan in August, 2000. Japanese staple food is rice. If our long history is seen, this fact is a recent custom. Till then, our ancestor was eating a lot of minor cereals of foxtail millet, proso millet, barnyard millet, and buckwheats for a long time. There was considerably a region where such minor cereals were grown, too. The vegetarian in Japan is paying attention to the minor cereals. And, they are practicing eating habits which center on grain and a little vegetable. The compatibility of the dish is often very delicious of this cereals and hemp to tell the truth. It will be paid to attention as a food with a high nutritive value in the future. In the spread of hemp, having a lot of people learn the goodness as the food might become a key.
At the end Hemp is a plant with which people have been associated for 10,000 years. The road will almost cut to the relation between the Japanese and hemp in 50 years after being able to do the law. The situation which comes round in hemp in Japan is difficult. However, interesting one will work in various fields, and they become shape little by little. In this report, a lot of problems when spreading are pointed out. Solving the problem is sure to become one step by which the role and the value of a new hemp are expanded.
by Yoshiyuki Akahoshi
WWW: http://www.netlaputa.ne.jp/~akahoshi/
From: Joe Wein joewein@pobox.com
To: Matthew@HempWorld.com
Subject: Japan
Date: Friday, March 12, 1999 8:11 PMIf you are looking for more information about hemp in Japan, take a look at http://www.taima.org
Best regards
Joe Wein
From: GDaurer@aol.com
To: Matthew@HempWorld.com
Subject: Japan hemp growing between the legal cracksIn a country with strict but sometimes bizarre drug laws, Yasunao Nakayama possesses a much sought-after permit.
8/27/97 By Stuart Young TOKYO (Reuter)
His recently acquired ``hemp grower's license'' allows him to cultivate the less potent cousin of the ``demon weed'' -- Cannabis Sativa, or marijuana. ``I can grow hemp to make fibers and extract the oil. ... Hemp and cannabis were used throughout the ages in Japan for clothes and as a herbal remedy. I'm just continuing that,'' Nakayama said.
He is the first person to receive such a license in highly urbanized Shizuoka Prefecture, 60 miles south of Tokyo, but he joins traditional hemp farmers in rural areas who have carried on an age-old industry despite Japan's strict drug laws.
In his shop called ``Kaya,'' the word used for cannabis in the lyrics of Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley, Nakayama sells skin creams containing hemp oil and clothes and craftwork made from hemp grown in his garden.
A ``hemp festival'' held every August in Shizukuishi-cho village in northern Iwate Prefecture draws growing crowds, said Haruko Oda, a member of the local hemp growers' association. ``We get more and more people every year who come to join in the harvest. ... We cut the seven-foot high hemp plants, blanch them in hot water and then burn the leftovers.''
The association of 15 growers sells medicines, skin creams and insect repellents made from hemp, an inextricable part of the local culture for centuries despite a ban introduced by American occupation authorities after World War II, Oda said.
HEMP USED FOR CLOTH FOR FEUDAL LORDS
``Before the ban we had been growing hemp here for centuries. It was used to make cloth for the feudal lords and for wedding ceremonies because of the fineness and strength of the thread and as a medicine,'' she said.
``Now we have to grow the less potent varieties and get a license from the local health center just to cultivate it. ... But of course we don't smoke it.''
Lawyer Hidehiro Marui, who has spent the past 22 years defending people charged with possession of cannabis, said the 1948 ban on marijuana imposed by the U.S. authorities was alien to Japanese culture.
``Until the U.S. forces ban, cannabis had been freely used in Japan for over 10,000 years. There is archeological evidence which shows cannabis was used for clothing material and the seeds were eaten in Japan right back to the Jomon Era (10,000 to 300 BC),'' he said. ``The demonization of cannabis is not part of Japanese heritage.''
Despite the fact that hallucinogenic substances such as psylocibin in magic mushrooms and mescaline in peyote cacti are specifically prohibited by Japan's drug laws, their raw source is freely on sale in Tokyo's crowded Shibuya leisure and entertainment district.
Standing by his stall laden with hallucinogenic materials -- magic mushroom spore kits, whole peyote cacti, bella donna leaves, morning glory seeds, passion flower leaves, Hawaiian wood rose seeds and wormwood -- Mitsumi, 26, capitalizes on the paradoxical nature of Japan's narcotics legislation.
``It's no problem. You can import it if it's not processed. And there's no ban against growing it yourself,'' he said.
LOOPHOLES IN DRUG LAWS
A Health and Welfare Ministry spokesman confirmed the loophole, saying: ``It's illegal to possess or import the drug itself but the plant from which it comes is legal.'' The loophole exists because Japan's drug laws were imposed from outside, he said.
In the first half of the century, he said, cannabis was a prescription drug for treating asthma and other respiratory diseases, but Japan was forced to adopt stricter controls due to international pressure. ``This means that under Japanese law cannabis is treated as if it was just as dangerous as heroin or cocaine ... although it could be said that cannabis is about as addictive or mind-altering as alcohol,'' he added.
Japan's ``yakuza'' criminal gangs control the vast majority of drug trafficking and their most lucrative product is amphetamines, known by the street names ``speed'' or ``ice,'' which are popular as a pick-me-up for those with fast-paced lifestyles, a National Police Agency spokesman said.
Amphetamines-related convictions have risen continually over the past five years -- last year 19,400 people were convicted for amphetamine smuggling, possession and use, up 2,300 on the previous year, he said. Meanwhile, cannabis convictions fell from 2,000 in 1994 to 1,200 last year.
Nevertheless, police put priority on catching cannabis offenders as much as trying to break hard drug smuggling rings. ``Amphetamines are the big problem but we are enforcing the cannabis laws as rigorously as the other drug laws,'' the police spokesman said.
Underworld and drug scene non-fiction writer Nobuhiro Motobashi said the cannabis ban should be relaxed to strike a blow against yakuza criminal gangs who traffic in marijuana and other drugs.
``The yakuza are running a dirty trade in drugs which could be seriously damaged if you relaxed marijuana restrictions and at the same time tightened laws to catch hard drugs traffickers,'' he said. ``In my own experience, marijuana isn't that dangerous, not like amphetamines or cocaine. Cannabis should still be illegal but it should be in a class of its own.''
From: "Gatanaga" diving@alphatec.or.jp
Date: 6/22/97 4:34
Subject: Japanese cannabis law
To: Matthew@HempWorld.comIn Japan, cultivation of hemp is possible under license, just for the purpose to get fiber and 'ogara' chopsticks for Japanese traditional use and so forth.
Historical Data:
Hemp fiber was highly regarded among the Japanese and figured prominently in their everyday lives and legends. Hemp, (asa in Japanese) was fundamental in Japanese life. Estimated first use of Hemp several 1'000 B.C.
In Japan cultivation of industrial Hemp is possible but no real current news has reached us yet.
Do you know more about this? e-mail us at Matthew@HempWorld.com
Hemp facts and links related to Japan:
PURITY*
Contrary to the United States, in Japan hemp is considered such a superior plant that it has long been associated with purity itself. For this reason, hemp was the fabric of choice for religious ceremonial garb. The plant was considered so powerful a blessing that it was even used to drive away evil spirits. Shinto priests would attach undyed hemp fibers to one end of a stick and wave the stick over the heads of individuals thought to be possessed by spirits. Since it was believed that evil and purity could not coexist, the presence of the hemp would drive the evil away.
Hemp became the primary source of fabric for kimonos, and the naturally beautiful material allowed Japanese artisans to achieve unparalleled heights of craftsmanship.*
*Note: From “The Hemp Manifesto” by Rowan Robinson (Email: hemp@gotoit.com), published by Park Street Press, an imprint of Inner Traditions International, Rochester, VT 05767 Copyright © 1997, Inner Traditions International. Or visit: www.gotoit.com
From: John E. Dvorak boston.hemp@pobox.com
To: Matthew@HempWorld.com
Subject: AGRICULTURE IN JAPAN - HEMP & FLAX; 1873
Date: Saturday, December 12, 1998>From the hemp history archives of the Boston Hemp Co-op (boston.hemp@pobox.com)
Pubdate: 1874 Source: Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the year 1873 Author: Hon. Horace Capron, Formerly U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture Pages: 372-373
AGRICULTURE IN JAPAN - HEMP & FLAX
Hemp is raised on valley-lands, which are dug up and flooded the same as for rice, and the same kind of fertilizers are used, that is, rape-seed or fish oil-cake, straw-manure, sea-weed, or liquid manure from closets. The hemp is not sown broadcast as with us, but is planted in March in drills 16 inches apart. As soon as the plants are well up they are hoed, and in addition to the manure worked into the soil previous to the planting, two or three times each month liquid manure is applied to the roots of each plant. Between these drills some kind of vegetable is grown and thoroughly fertilized. The ground is completely flooded several times by means of the ubiquitous irrigating ditches. In August the hemp is pulled, not cut, and is placed in the water-ditches and alternately soaked a few days and then dried for a time, till the external coating is thoroughly rotted; it is then beaten on a board or plank platform with a bamboo stick till the fiber is entirely cleaned. Another method for separating the fiber is by holding a number of the stems near their tops with the left hand, (an equal number at each time,) and with the right hand breaking them short off and stripping the fiber from the stems. This leaves it in hanks of uniform size, which is retained through the whole process until baled for market. To relieve the fiber of its glutinous coating is a very simple process. A thin piece of bamboo, about 3 inches wide and 2 or 3 feet long, is stretched over two bridges in a manner similar to the hairs on a fiddle-bow, so as to render it elastic; this is fastened in a convenient manner a little inclined. The hanks of hemp in the damp state are laid upon this as they are stripped, then another piece of bamboo, curved like a currier's scraper, is run down over this several times till the fiber is entirely clean. These hanks are then hung over bamboo rods to dry. It is then pressed into bales of 100 pounds each, and sent on pack-horses to market. It is probably the finest hemp grown in the world. The great length, fineness, glossiness, and strength of the staple are unequaled.
I have been unable to ascertain the average yield of hemp per acre. It is sold very low in the market at present, but when the proper machinery is invented for working this fiber it will prove a mine of wealth to Japan.
Flax is grown on the same soil as hemp, and manured the same, and prepared in like manner for market. It is also noted for its excellence. These two crops are raised by rotation, that is, are never grown two seasons in succession on the same ground.
Do you know more about this? e-mail us at Matthew@HempWorld.com
*Industrial-Hemp has no psychoactive properties following definition of the European Economic Community (EEC); THC content is less than 0.3%. In general, low THC-seed varieties without psychoactive properties are those that have a THC content of less than 1%. (See also No-THC Hemp-seed.) THC= Delta-9 TetraHydroCannabinol.
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