Methamphetamine Use in Japan after the Second World War: Transformation of Narratives

Methamphetamine use in Japanafter the Second World War:Transformation of narratives

BY AKIHIKO SATO

Scholars have argued that post-World War II domestic disorder inJapan caused a serious methamphetamine problem, which directlyled to the establishment of the Stimulant Control Law of 1951. Thispaper examines the process through which that Law came intoeffect to argue the central significance of shifting discoursessurrounding methamphetamine use, especially by users themselves,and nationalist dialogue concerning secret production and thesmuggling of methamphetamine. These factors worked together inthe 1950s to transform contemporary understandings ofmethamphetamine use, and to foster state efforts to regulate it.

Contemporary Drug Problems 35/Winter 2008 717

CDP Winter 2008 article by: Sato09-09-2009 Rev.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I express my gratitude to Professor David T. Courtwrightof the University of North Florida, who recommended me to present part ofmy book Drug and Discourse: Methamphetamine in Japan to the GlobalApproaches conference; to Dr. Kyoko Murakami of University of Bath, aspecialist in discouse analysis, who commented on the first draft of thisarticle; and to Dr. Norman Smith of University of Guelph (Canada), whoencouraged me to write in English.

© 2009 by Federal Legal Publications, Inc.

Methamphetamine, popularly known as ice or crystal in thestreets of Western countries today, was discovered in Japan in1888.1 It was initially named M33N because it was the 33rdextract discovered by Nagayoshi Nagai (1845-1929) of TokyoUniversity in the course of his analysis of Maou (ephedraeherba). Nagai had worked as an assistant to August Wilhelmvon Hofmann of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin beforereturning to Japan in 1884 in order to construct modern (i.e.,Westernized) pharmaceutics (Nagai, 1893; Kanao, 1960;Yamashita, 1966, 1969). He was known for his research onMaou extract, and especially for the discovery of ephedrine in1885. However, M33N sank into oblivion until the 1940s,when researchers argued that it might have medicinal applica-tions (Horimi, Hashimoto, Inour, Soya & Egawa, 1940;Ariyama, 1941; Miura, 1941). In 1941 Kinnosuke Miura, amethamphetamine expert, wrote: “The reason why I publishthis research . . . is because I have read the article about theapplications of ‘Pervitin’ by P. Püllen, and find that it is suit-able at this time to produce a medicine as useful as Pervitinin our country and make it available for our colleagues”(Miura, 1941, p. 8).

Pervitin was the name given to methamphetamine in Ger-many. Other researchers, Taro Horimi of Osaka Universityand Noboru Ariyama of Niigata Medical College, alsoreferred to the useful features of methamphetamine andamphetamine,2 as described in medical and pharmaceuticaljournals in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the UnitedStates, where amphetamine was already commercialized bythe 1930s. The reason why methamphetamine was re-evalu-ated and reintroduced in Japan was because of these Westernprecedents.

Methamphetamine and amphetamine were then made avail-able for commercial use in Japan; they were initially used inhospitals and by students for night-time study. However, asthe phrase “it is suitable at this time” in the Miura quotationcited above suggests, methamphetamine was soon used in mil-

718 METHAMPHETAMINE USE IN JAPAN AFTER WWII


itary and related organizations after the start of the PacificWar in December 1941. Following Japan’s defeat, metham-phetamine (and amphetamine as well) began to be usedthroughout Japan, especially in the urban areas, the usersincluding novelists, dancers, and night-club comedians as wellas ordinary office workers. However, it was soon demonizedas a drug that was thought to produce addiction and psychosis.Why did such an abrupt change happen in Japan? And how?

Some typical answers to these questions have been providedby medical doctors and criminologists (Tatetsu, Goto, & Fuji-wara, 1956; Tamura, 1982; Suwaki, Fukui, & Komura, 1997).They argue that Japan had a recognizable methamphetamineproblem immediately after the Second World War, when post-war disorder induced many people to use methamphetamine asa way of relieving mental stress and depression. This pro-duced high numbers of methamphetamine psychosis, and sub-sequently the Stimulant Control Law of 1951 was establishedin response. The problem with this argument, however, is thatmany people continued to use methamphetamine regularlywithout developing psychosis, and, besides, there was no men-tion of the psychosis-producing effect of methamphetamine inthe National Diet debate on the Stimulant Control Law.

This article seeks to explain methamphetamine use in post-war Japan by describing the steps that led to the passage ofthe Stimulant Control Law and by analyzing contemporarynarratives on methamphetamine and its use, especially in ref-erence to two elements of the story that have not been previ-ously discussed: transformations in the discourse ofmethamphetamine use, especially by users themselves, andnationalist dialogue concerning the secret production andsmuggling of methamphetamine. Both are particularly rele-vant to post-war Japan, especially in the 1950s.

Narrative analysis requires a distinct perspective. The narra-tives analyzed here will not be used as evidence of contempo-rary facts. Rather, they will be treated as factual accounts that

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construct versions of variant realities. In other words, eachnarrative has the potential to realize what it implies, andthose potentialities suggest the many possibilities of narra-tives with regard to the same thing. The questions abovemight be rephrased as follows: Why and how did some narra-tives come to dominate others, and what caused the abruptchange in the formation of narratives on methamphetamine inJapan in the 1950s?

Methamphetamine use and condemnation

Methamphetamine, once made available for commercial usein the 1940s by many pharmaceutical companies, was morepopular than amphetamine. This is illustrated in Figure 1,below.

One of the most famous and popular medicines was Philopon,which was extracted by Dr. Miura and the Dainippon Pharma-ceutical Company and made available in 1941. Philopon is acoined word, combining the Greek philo (love) and ponos(labor), and was a synonym for stimulants until the 1970s.3

The Imperial Japanese Armed Forces used methamphetamineduring the Second World War. For example, soldiers on sen-try duty were supplied with tablets called Cat-Eye Tablet(Nekome-Jo). Most famously, it was used by the SpecialForces, such as the kamikaze. The tablets for the SpecialForces were blended with green tea powder, stamped with theemperor’s crest, and named The Storming Tablet (Totsugeki-Jo or Tokkou-Jo).

After the war, the Armed Forces’ stockpiles of these medi-cines were dispersed through channels that are impossible totrace because of post-war disorder.4 However, elderly veter-ans have told the author that, once the war was over, theytook their medicines home and used them as a way of stayingawake while studying or working through the night. Theyclaim that the medicines were very useful and did not cause



any harm. They also expressed surprise upon being told thatthe medicines were stimulants which have been thought toproduce addiction and even psychosis.5 Faulty memories maybe at work here, making it difficult to assess the veracity of

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FIGURE 1

Patented medicines containing methamphetamine andamphetamine in the 1940s (Ikuta, 1951)

Patent Name Company Content

Hospitan Santendo Pharmaceutical Company methamphetamine

Takarapin Takara Pharmaceutical Company methamphetamine

Neopampron Ono Pharmaceutical Company methamphetamine

Methypamine Manwa Pharmaceutical Company methamphetamine

Hinodedorine Hinode Chemical Company methamphetamine

Neopamine Toho Sangyo Corporation methamphetamine

Supermine Nissin Chemical Corporation methamphetamine

Kobapon Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Industries Company methamphetamine

Methypron Yodogawa Pharmaceutical Company methamphetamine

Fukuzedrin Touzai Pharmacy methamphetamine

Neophilon Nitto Pharmaceutical and Chemical Industries Company methamphetamine

Philopon Dainippon Pharmaceutical Company methamphetamine

Proamine Ueno Fine Chemical Industry methamphetamine

Methylpropamine Taisho Pharmaceutical Company methamphetamine

Zedrin Takeda Pharmaceutical Company amphetamine

Aron Shizuoka Caffeine Company methamphetamine

Hospitan Mita Pharmaceutical Company methamphetamine

Agotine Toyama Chemical Company amphetamine

Neoagotine (Actamine) Toyama Chemical Company methamphetamine

Propamine Naigai Seiyaku Company methamphetamine

Okapron Okano Pharmaceutical Company methamphetamine

Methypron Shiraimatsu Pharmaceutical Industries Company methamphetamine

Parten Shionogi and Company amphetamine

Zandorman Doujin Pharmaceutical Company amphetamine

the facts these veterans relate, especially as they pertain tomethamphetamine. Nevertheless, their recollections arehighly suggestive of the ways in which people viewed suchmedicines in the early post-war period. The fact that they didnot associate the medicines with ill effects might astonishreaders today because narratives concerning methampheta-mine have altered so thoroughly that the positive features ofthese drugs are rarely discussed.

Documentary evidence from the post-war period supports theveterans’ testimony. One prominent example can be found inthe minutes of the National Diet for November 24, 1949. TheMinistry of Health and Welfare (the current Ministry ofHealth, Labor, and Welfare) had issued administrative guide-lines (in other words “orders,” even though they had no legalbasis) and regulations to every pharmaceutical company torefrain from the production of methamphetamine and amphet-amine, on the ground that some users, such as novelists, per-formers, and students, were said to abuse them.6 However,Yuzo Ogawa, a representative of the Diet, called such admin-istrative measures into question. “I have some questionsabout the Philopon problem,” he said. “The Ministry ofHealth and Welfare, in the name of the undersecretary, askedevery pharmaceutical company not to produce or to reducethe amount of production of Philopon and other stimulants.But the general working public and the industry as well havebeen suffering from such measures. According to medical andpharmaceutical points of view, the stimulants represented byPhilopon are excellent medicines” (National Diet, 1949, p. 1116).He added that the problems associated with Philopon wereconfined to a small group of users and that it would be betterto enforce strict control over those abusers rather than overthe entire population.

Ogawa’s comments indicate that in the late 1940s peoplecould still discuss the positive effects of methamphetamineeven after it was claimed to be dangerous or at least problem-atic. Since positive narratives regarding methamphetamine



use remained in circulation, we can understand why Ogawapleaded against the ministry’s measures, arguing thatmethamphetamine was abused only by certain individuals.7 Inother words, whatever problems were associated withmethamphetamine should be attributed not to the medicineitself but to the specific groups or persons who abused it.8

On the other hand, the ministry had good reasons for takingthe action it did. Two high-profile deaths had already con-tributed toward Philopon’s reputation as a dangerous drug.On October 14, 1946 Miss Wakana (Kikuno Kawamoto,1910-1946), a famous comedienne, died from a heart attacksuffered on the platform of the Nishinomiya Kitaguchi stationnear Kobe. Since she was known to have used Philopon regu-larly, her death was interpreted to have been caused by its use(Iwata, 1947). Then, on December 4, 1947, Sakunosuke Oda(1913-1948), a popular novelist, spat blood and enteredTokyo Hospital. He died on January 10, 1948. He was alsowell known for using Philopon, so many people thought thathe died because of it.9

Incidents such as these led some people to condemn the useof Philopon and other stimulants. By 1949, significant con-demnation of methamphetamine, or, to be more exact, itsusers, especially writers and performers, arose. For example,Imao Hirano, a poet and a scholar of French literature, writ-ing in the monthly magazine Sekai Hyouron (World View),criticized the use of Philopon in the post-war literature move-ment (Hirano, 1949). He recounted that he had met a demonicman during the war who sold Philopon even though he waswell aware of its effects on young kamikaze. Hirano arguedthat Philopon was a symbol of the darkness of wartime andattacked the post-war literature movement for ignoring thisfact and thereby encouraging a mindset not worthy of thepost-war era. His essay is but one example of contemporarycondemnation of methamphetamine users, especially artistswho were looked down upon as immoral (Suzuki, 1949;Takeyama, 1949).

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Methamphetamine, therefore, was initially condemned not forits intrinsic features but for its symbolic meaning and for itsassociation with users who were perceived to be deviants.However, such views were not so powerful as to win supportfor any law aimed at directly prohibiting or at least control-ling the use of methamphetamine and amphetamine. TheNational Diet did not take any action along these lines.Rather, the ministry applied administrative guidelines andregulations to control the amount of production in order toprevent specific groups and persons from abusing the drug. Inorder to establish laws for methamphetamine control, moreproblematic aspects of the issue needed to arise.

The stimulant control law

The process of the legalization of methamphetamine controlreflects how contemporaries viewed methamphetamine. In theNational Diet, the first debate on methamphetamine useoccurred in October 1949. Diet minutes demonstrate that thefirst step in calling methamphetamine into question related tocircumstances around street children, most of whom had losttheir parents in the war because of methamphetamine use. Thefollowing is an exchange between two Diet representatives:

Ms. Natsue Inoue: Now look, what I want to discuss is a problemabout street children using Philopon that has been discussed in thenewspapers.10 If there are any documents about it, I would like toget them. Or, if there seems to be discussion regarding control overnarcotics these days, then I’ll ask the chair of the committee to dosomething, to invite some government officials related to thingslike that.

Chair (Mr. Juzo Tsukamoto): I have also been thinking of theseimportant problems so I visited the Ministry of Health and Welfare,where I heard something from the Pharmaceutical Affairs Bureauand met the Chief of the Bureau to talk about it. He insisted that theMinistry was also anxious about the situation. He also mentionedthat there were some committees for such matters. I think we willdiscuss this issue in another session. (National Diet, 1949, October24, p. 6)



Subsequently, the Ministry of Health and Welfare sent admin-istrative guidelines to every pharmaceutical company sug-gesting a production quota.

As the discussions went on in the Diet, it became clear thatthe representatives and government staff shared the opinionthat those who were to be blamed were not the street childrenusing methamphetamine but the smugglers and other adultswho gave methamphetamine to them. These people made thestreet children abuse it, and some of them encouraged the chil-dren to steal in exchange for methamphetamine, so that thechildren were thought to be victims in that sense as well(National Diet, 24 Oct. 1949; Asahi Shinbun, 1949, 19 Oct.,24 Oct., 22 Nov.). In fact, street children often needed some-thing to keep their energy level high, since food was stillbeing rationed and its distribution was often behind schedule.11

Yet, while the Diet and the Ministry of Health and Welfarepaid attention to Philopon abuse in the streets, many peoplestill used methamphetamine regularly. An editorial titled“Where Does Philopon Go?” (Philopon wa Dounaru?) in theJournal of the Japan Medical Association (Nihon IshikaiZasshi) in 1950 stated:

Recently there is a decline in news about the addiction to Philoponand other stimulants, whereas it was once a considerable topic ofnews and conversation, even the National Diet discussing it.Because the main consumers of the medicine are media stars likepopular novelists, actors, singers, prostitutes, rascals in the streets,and street children, the news was often exaggerated. Supposedly theuse of the medicine has spread over all social classes. When I metmany journalists in a meeting and asked them about its use, I wasvery surprised to find that almost all of them have been using it reg-ularly. Of course, they suggested that its use is not due to addictionbut to the need to make work productivity rise. They excused it asfollows, “If the companies pay well, we do not need to work untillate at night and to use such stuff.” One of the reasons for the preva-lence of this medicine is seriously damaged social circumstances,that is to say, the poverty of post-war society and the lack of whole-some amusements and non-essential grocery items. (Japan MedicalAssociation, 1950, p. 141)

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An incident involving Toyama Chemical (Toyama KagakuKougyou) was one of the triggers for the legalization ofmethamphetamine control (Kondo, 1955). In October 1950approximately 100 young people (men and women) werearrested in connection with what was called a Mass SexualAssault Incident in Tsuchiai Vil lage (Tsuchiai Mura,absorbed into Urawa City in 1955).12 Then it was brought tolight that many of those arrested used Neoagotine (metham-phetamine), produced by Toyama Chemical (see Figure 1). Itwas also revealed that Toyama Chemical produced over 10million ampoules quarterly, whereas its production quota wasonly 51,000. However, the quota had no legal basis because itwas just an administrative guideline, so that Toyama Chemi-cal was fined only 5,000 yen (about 14 US dollars) for notreporting accurate production totals (National Council ofYouth Problems, 1950; Asahi Shinbun, 1950, 10 Nov., 13Nov., 15 Nov.).13 The National Police Headquarters and otherofficial bodies stressed the need for laws to provide strictcontrol of such activities.14

The issue of methamphetamine control was thus promoted onthe basis that those to be blamed were the smugglers and peo-ple producing methamphetamine secretly. Two psychopathol-ogists were called to the Diet to testify about what later cameto be identified as the negative features of methamphetamineuse, notably addiction and psychosis (National Diet, 1951,February 15) Still, the first purpose of methamphetaminecontrol was not to punish users but to maintain strict controlover smugglers (National Diet, 1951, February 22). Thus,government staff explained the clause prohibiting the posses-sion of the stimulant as follows:

Clause number 14 prohibits possession. One of the most difficultmatters that official control bodies have to deal with is the lack of alegal basis to control possession. They cannot prosecute those whopossess stimulants to sell in the town like Ueno.15 The Pharmaceuti-cal Affairs Law is only for the companies and persons who manu-facture and deal in medicine by occupation. So the PharmaceuticalAffairs Law cannot be administered to those who just possess stim-ulant. Even if a person possesses stimulants to sell, s/he cannot be



arrested unless the crime is committed in the presence of an officer.(National Diet, 1951, May 23, pp. 14-15)

The Stimulant Control Law was passed in June 1951. It pro-hibited possession of the drug; however, as noted above, theclause containing this provision was designed to arrest smug-glers, who often insisted that their drugs were just for theirpersonal use and not for sale (National Diet, 1951, 25 May).

New narratives

The process whereby the Stimulant Control Law of 1951came into being was driven by factors quite different from theconventional understanding of methamphetamine today,namely, that methamphetamine is a drug that often causesaddiction and psychosis. In the early 1950s people could stilltalk about its positive values, even in public places such asthe National Diet of Japan. And so, to understand how theperception of methamphetamine changed, we need to look atanother process whereby new narratives on methamphetamineemerged following the passage of the 1951 law, and espe-cially after 1954 when a campaign for the eradication ofmethamphetamine was launched. At this point, narratives onmethamphetamine use began to converge into a new pattern,triggered in part by a famous homicide case.

On April 20, 1954 an 11-year-old schoolgirl, Kyoko Hosoda,was sexually assaulted and murdered in the restroom of theprimary school in the Bunkyo district of Tokyo. She had goneto the restroom during a class and never returned. The teacherdid not notice her absence until her mother, who was visitingthe school, asked where her daughter was. A school-widesearch ensued; finally, her mother found her body in the rest-room. The case was called the Kyoko-chan incident, after thevictim (Kyoko-chan Jiken). The shock in the community wassuch that newspapers covered the investigation almost everyday until May 6, when the suspect was arrested. In all, 667people were questioned during that period.

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At the beginning, and sometimes later as well, the girl’s mur-der was attributed to the teacher’s carelessness (NationalDiet, 1954, April 20, May 14). However, when the suspect, a20-year-old man named Shukichi Sakamaki, who had beensuffering from tuberculosis and used Philopon, was arrested,a new interpretation arose—one that underlines the role ofnewspapers in symbolically demonstrating the transformationof methamphetamine narratives.

The newspaper Asahi Shinbun reported on May 6, just afterthe arrest, the suspect’s version of events. While walking bythe school, he said, he had decided to use its restroom. One ofthe stall doors was open slightly, revealing the foot of a girl.With the intention of raping her, he entered the stall andlocked the door. The girl’s screams as he assaulted her causedhim to lose control, and he strangled her. He was now sorryfor what he had done; in fact, the arresting officer related thatSakamaki had cried during his interrogation. The article alsoreported that Sakamaki had committed other sexual miscon-duct since he was teenager.

In another newspaper article, Sakamaki’s father said that,while he had been sweet-tempered when very young, hischaracter changed for the worse when his mother began occa-sionally cohabiting with her lover in Sakamaki’s lodging(Asahi Shinbun, 1954, May 6). Most of the reports attributedhis murder of Kyoko Hosoda to his warped personality, aswell as the environment in which he grew up. However, onMay 7, 1954, Asahi Shinbun introduced a new theme:methamphetamine use was one of the main causes of the inci-dent, far more important than personality and environment.An article headlined “There Still Exists Another Sakamaki,Kyoko-chan Incident Tells Us” (Mada Iru Dai Ni no Saka-maki, Kyoko-chan Jiken wa Oshieru) reported the view of apsychopathologist, who had testified to the fatal features ofmethamphetamine in the Diet in 1951, that Sakamaki’sbehavior was typical of that of Philopon addicts.16 The articledenounced Philopon and stressed the importance of eradicat-



ing it (Asahi Shinbun, 1954, May 7). And on May 8, thenewspaper argued strongly in an editorial that stimulantsmade young people lose their reason and commit crimes,often psychopathic, and that the eradication of stimulants wasurgently needed.

The popular notion that many brutal crimes were caused bymethamphetamine psychosis and that the problem wasmethamphetamine itself can be seen in the strong movementagainst the drug in 1954. That June, the Stimulant ControlLaw was amended to impose heavier punishments for viola-tions of the law,17 and in October the government launched acampaign for the drug’s total eradication. This campaignresulted in significant numbers of arrests: 55,664 in 1954, thelargest number in the history of the Stimulant Control Law(Figure 2).

FIGURE 2

Number of arrests for violation of Stimulant Control Law(from White Papers)

The same association of brutal crimes with methamphetaminepsychosis resulted in the transformation of narratives sur-rounding users. Starting in 1954, almost all the narratives byusers that appeared in government documents, newspapers,

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and magazines were recast into a new and single pattern.Consider, for example, a magazine article that appeared inOctober 1954 entitled “The Actual Conditions of the TerribleIllness [Philopon] That Disrupts Our Country: The Devil Tak-ing Aim at Young Peoples’ Bodies” (Osorubeki BoukokuByou [Philopon] no Jittai: Seishounen wo nerau nikutai noakuma). Claiming that methamphetamine use by young peo-ple posed a threat to Japanese society, the author (an ex-userof Philopon) pointed to his own experience as evidence. Hesaid that, under the influence of the drug, his hallucinationsreached the point that he mistook a dustbin for a policemanand a dog for a detective. Now 19 years old and in a reforma-tory, he was convinced that his troubles were the result ofmethamphetamine use. His account read as follows:

I found good effects from Philopon after using it for studying formy exams. I escalated my use up to 50 ampoules per day one monthlater. Nothing felt better than when I injected the needle into myblood stream. I felt as if I were in Heaven when I cut the top of anampoule for preparation. When I could not get any Philopon, Isometimes felt good only when I injected just a needle without it. I took my school uniform to a pawnshop to buy it. In the meantime,I could not stand without shooting 5 cc every hour. One night, when Isuffered from withdrawal pain, I rushed like a sleepwalker to theKorean village where I often bought it. But I found a policeman (itwas a dustbin) crouching to apprehend me. I was surprised to seehim and tried to go by another route, but the policeman chased me.I ran like mad and then a detective (a dog) jumped out suddenly inmy path. I cried and returned to my house. Even then, I could nothelp thinking that the policeman was coming to catch me wheneverI heard a sound at the gate and the kitchen . . . I could not stop wor-rying, so I went upstairs and hid myself in the closet. I chatteredbecause I could not help thinking that the electric cable at the stairslooked like the telephone line with which my family called thepolice . . . I now find it was like I was crazy, but I spent such terri-fying days that everything I heard and saw was the stuff for chasingme and even killing me. (Anonymous, 1954, pp. 107-108)

There are several interesting themes in this narrative. Whenwe consider the above example from a sociological point ofview, it can be thought of as an account that performs a dis-cursive action to justify or excuse one’s action (Scott &



Lyman, 1968; Buttny, 1993). In addition, from an eth-nomethodological perspective, accounting is one of the mainactivities of our ordinary life, which people use to rendertheir actions normal, understandable, proper, and the like.People account for their actions so that others can make senseof what they are doing “for all practical purposes” (Garfinkel,1967) in interactions. Against this background, we can viewthe testimony quoted above as an example in which the narra-tor explains his actions to make himself understandable toothers—that he is using methamphetamine intoxication as adiscursive resource to make sense of his actions. In otherwords, the narrator is presenting his actions as ones that werecaused not by his inborn personality but by his use ofmethamphetamine.

Additionally and interestingly, the narrator’s account of hal-lucinations shows the gap between the period of intoxication(insane in the past) and the period of recovery (sane at pres-ent), and makes his story persuasive. The reason why he cannow describe his past actions so clearly is that he has “now”noticed “the fact” (i.e., his version of reality) that he experi-enced hallucinations in the “past.” His awareness that thepoliceman was actually a dustbin and the detective actually adog became possible only after he reached the realization thathe had been intoxicated and suffering hallucination. Thisrealization demonstrates that he has “recovered.” In short, hefinally understands what he did while under the influence ofmethamphetamine, and he can “now” (when he is narrating)discuss it rationally because he has stopped using metham-phetamine and recovered from intoxication. His narrativeitself functions to show that he is “now” “normal.” To use theterminology of Harvey Sacks (1970), his narrative shows him“doing ‘being ordinary.”18

This type of narrative, then, argued that blame for misdeedswas to be applied not to users themselves but to methamphet-amine. It showed that users were aware of their past problems(which are typically expressed in doubled descriptions of past

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and present, as in the example above), but that, in their view,it was not they themselves but the methamphetamine that wasresponsible for these problems. Negative features of metham-phetamine were used as discursive resources to show thatusers were victimized, thereby allowing them to avoidresponsibility for past actions and show that they are “now”normal.

When examining examples of methamphetamine narrativesafter 1954, the following common features emerge:

• Users began to use methamphetamine not because they wantedto, nor because they wanted to do bad things.

• They found themselves unable to stop using it.

• Their use of methamphetamine was accompanied by manyancillary troubles, such as hallucination and violence.

• They finally became aware that they had been intoxicated.

This type of narrative provides the standpoint from whichJapanese policy on methamphetamine has been justified since1954, and especially in the 1970s, during the second preva-lence of stimulants (Sato, 2006: Chapter 8). In the 1970s, thegovernment published a booklet entitled Terrors of the WhitePowder (Prime Minister’s Office (1977)), in which the samenarrative was repeated but with the following variation: usersoften express their gratitude to police for their arrest at the end.

This theme occurs throughout the narratives cited in Terrorsof the White Powder, which was based mainly on testimonycollected during police investigations. The booklet was oftencited in books and magazines (e.g., Shukan Sankei [1977];Muroo [1982a, 1982b]), which presumably made the narra-tives even more popular. The widespread prevalence of thebooklet does not mean that the government was involved in asort of conspiracy to shape narratives in certain ways. Rather,people arrested for using stimulants, mainly methampheta-mine, explained their actions in such a way as to make them-selves understandable to others, in this case police officers.



The narrative of methamphetamine users had been trans-formed so thoroughly that users could never talk about theirexperiences in the same terms as they had before 1954, atleast in public places.

These historical and interactional dynamics reveal how themeanings of methamphetamine underwent such an abruptchange and how many people reached the conclusion thatthose who used methamphetamine inevitably became insaneand could not recover—a belief that most Japanese holdtoday.19 There is now a consensus, including among officialdrug-control organizations, that methamphetamine has suchfatal features that no one can escape them once she or hestarts using the drug. This may explain why no institution forrehabilitation had developed until the Drug Addiction Reha-bilitation Center (DARC) was organized in 1985 in Tokyo.20

Nationalist talk

There is another aspect of this story which also accounts forthe changing narratives of methamphetamine. That is thebelief, which in part drove the anti-methamphetamine cam-paign of 1954, that methamphetamine abuse was caused byhostile forces originating from outside Japan.

The state of Japanese society during the occupation directlyrelates to transformations in methamphetamine narratives.After losing the war, Japan was occupied by the United Statesmilitary and controlled by General Headquarters/SupremeCommander for Allied Powers (GHQ), under the leadershipof General Douglas MacArthur. In 1949 the People’s Repub-lic of China was founded by the Chinese Communist Party,and in May of the following year MacArthur argued that theJapanese Communist Party should be made illegal. Over thenext month, 24 members of the Central Committee of theJapanese Communist Party and some officers of the partyjournal were expelled from the public service. Subsequently,

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when the Korean War (1950–1953) broke out on June 25,1950, the menace of communism began to be talked aboutpublicly. The GHQ ordered the government, mass media, andother companies to expel all communists, starting in July.Approximately eleven thousand people were expelled (NationalDiet, 1950, November 17), launching the Red Purge.

The authorities also felt threatened by movements whichwere thought to be under communist control. On May Day,1952, large anti-government demonstrations and marcheswere organized in several big cities and many people werearrested; 253 had been prosecuted by January 1953 (AsahiShinbun, 1953, January 28). The most infamous demonstra-tion happened in Tokyo, in the park in front of the ImperialPalace. That demonstration led to the arrest of 1,206 peopleand the prosecution of 236 (National Diet, 1953, July 17). Aplenary session of the Diet and several of its committees dis-cussed the unrest and concluded that communists and theirsympathizers were responsible (National Diet, 1952, May 6,May 7, May 9). And later the government official lyannounced that the turbulence had been engineered by “for-eign communist countries” (National Diet, 1952, July 1).

In the years afterwards, the menace of communism—particu-larly as embodied by the communist state of North Korea—and the illegal manufacture and smuggling of methamphetaminegradually became intertwined. The connection was not soclear in 1952, though one newspaper, Asahi Shinbun, hintedat it for the first time in August of that year (Asahi Shinbun,1952, 25 Aug.). The article reported that two Japanese menhad illegally produced methamphetamine in Tokyo and trans-ported it to Korean neighborhoods in Kawasaki (next toTokyo). It also noted, interestingly, that one of the offenderswas an ex-communist. One year later, in August 1953, theconnection between Koreans, communism, and methampheta-mines was made more explicit: “Much of the illegal produc-tion of Philopon was done by Korean people, who cannot liveby selling clothes, moonshine, and cigarettes in the under-



ground markets lately. They have changed their source ofincome to the manufacture of Philopon, which is relativelyeasy to produce in a small place, as reported by the Metropol-itan Police. They also argued that it is difficult to controlthem because there are strong forces that plead against con-trol on the ground that ‘it threatens people’s right to live’”(Asahi Shinbun, 1953, 17 Aug.).

In this statement, the term “some strong forces” was meant tosuggest communists. The menace of communism could bediscursively connected with methamphetamine illegal pro-duction and smuggling when mediated by Korean people. Inother words, Korean people—probably because of the largenumber of marginalized Koreans in Japan—was a discursiveresource which was an available and perhaps even necessarylinkage between the contemporary perceptions of the menaceof communism and the illegal production and smuggling ofmethamphetamine.

In October 1953 the Metropolitan Police conducted inspec-tions of Korean villages and other areas for suspected viola-tion of the Stimulant Control Law, which resulted in thearrest of many Koreans for the illegal production of metham-phetamine (National Diet, 1953, October 30).21 In total, therewere 38,514 arrests, the second largest number of arrests inthe history of the legislation, leading to an upward curve inthe number of arrests in the 1950s (see Figure 2). The chief ofthe Metropolitan Police noted that 71% of the people arrestedwere Korean and that the police had conducted an intensivesearch of the places where there supposedly existed manysites for illegal production and smuggling, especially in theeast of Tokyo.22 In other words, the figure of 71% pertained tothe inspection of specific places, mainly Korean villages.23

These trends accelerated in 1954, especially after the Kyoko-chan incident. Illustrative in this regard was the debate in theDiet concerning amendments to the Stimulant Control Law,which started in May 1954, just after the murder of Kyoko

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Hosoda. In that debate, the Stimulant Control Law was dis-cussed in terms of revisions to the Immigration Law, includ-ing the enforced repatriation of Koreans (National Diet, 1954,May 25). This was because of public perceptions that Kore-ans smuggled stimulants and many of them were communistsor communist sympathizers who were engaged in attacks onJapan and the Japanese people. However, the clause providingfor enforced repatriation was not included in the final billbecause of ongoing disagreement with the government ofSouth Korea.

Illegal production and smuggling of methamphetamine hadalready been discussed with the communist regimes of NorthKorea and China, explicitly and, almost always, because ofJapanese fears of communist invasion after the Korean Warwas suspended on July 27, 1953. When the campaign againstmethamphetamine was launched in October 1954, the chief ofthe crime-prevention division of the Metropolitan Policecommented in a newspaper that the police would tighten con-trols over the smugglers, even when Korean powers tried tointerrupt their investigations (Asahi Shinbun, 1954, 15 Oct.).Similarly, the report of the Metropolitan Police on its cam-paign began on this nationalist note: “In order to maintain thepurity of Japanese ethnicity and, especially, to attempt toraise sound young people who will contribute to our futuregenerations, now is the time when we have to pluck up ourcourage to eradicate stimulants” (Metropolitan Police, 1955,p. 1). Later, the report made explicit reference to Koreans:

Seventy percent of these smugglers, unlawful producers, and boot-leggers consist of Korean people and they gnaw at the bodies andspirits of approximately 1,500,000 of our fellow countrymen. At itsmost extreme, we seem to be living with a large crowd of peoplegoing insane and becoming brutal offenders. . . . Our fellow coun-trymen, especially young people, are the victims of Korean peopleseeking their own interests, and the result will be the destruction ofour future generations, who will become sick and decline in healthand finally turn into addicts who will destroy our entire socialorder. . . . Korean people who are well informed of the dangers of



stimulants rarely use it themselves nor do they allow their childrento use it. (Ibid.. pp. 19-20)

The above could be considered nationalist rhetoric, because itdistinguishes between “we” and “they” with negative attrib-utes linked to stories inspired by “them” (Billig, 1995). As Ihave already suggested, this type of nationalist talk had beenstrong and popular since 1953. Further, its suggestion thatmethamphetamine users, especially young people, were vic-tims of the smugglers had been popular since the late 1940sand early 1950s, when methamphetamine began to be treatedas a problem. Such nationalist talk can be said to haveemerged from arguments that young people were victimswhereas the Koreans were assailants.

I do not argue that claims regarding communism and Koreanillegal production and smuggling were patently false, butrather that discussions over methamphetamine use were oftenfueled by perceived threats, real or implied, to the Japanesepeople. This type of discourse was so strong that it effectivelyfunctioned as an intellectual frame in which methampheta-mine use could be critiqued, because such criticism ofmethamphetamine use implied not individual vice but a threatto the future of Japan.24

Closing remarks

I have argued in this article that the abrupt change in the dis-course of methamphetamine in 1950s in Japan was caused bythe transformation of the narratives of methamphetamine useon the part of users themselves and by nationalist dialogueconcerning illegal production and smuggling of methamphet-amine. In support of this claim, I have outlined the events thatled to the passage of the Stimulant Control Law and also ana-lyzed the narratives on methamphetamine that emerged insubsequent years.

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This argument has some theoretical implications. The processof extending legal control over methamphetamine production,as well as changes in the narratives and images of metham-phetamine, can be seen as the result of a moral panic thatarose in post-war situation Japan, a panic in which moral bar-ricades (Cohen, 1972) were set up to prevent post-war disor-der. Moral Panic theory is very useful in explainingtransformations in methamphetamine narratives.

However, there are important points that need to be madeabout Moral Panic theory. One of its main assumptions is thatthere should be some latent moral panic phenomena that pre-cede the emergence of perceptions of a social problem. Thatis why most interpretations based on Moral Panic theoryfocus on the content of the panic and the timing of the emer-gence of the problem, which are often revealed by materialsand descriptions in mass media (e.g., Ben-Yehuda, 1990).However, the link between the preceding panic and the fol-lowing problem is not necessarily clear because the link itselfis constituted by the description of the account by theresearcher. In other words, the link between the panic and theproblem is often described as the link between categoriesdeveloped by the researcher to make sense of the causal rela-tionship. The link between categories could be said to be aself-fulfilling prophecy.

This caution does not mean that any interpretation based onMoral Panic theory is invalid. Rather, it is possible for us todevelop points of view, such that streams of language games(to quote Wittgenstein) related to differing topics meet eachother, and subsequently new or revised versions of realityemerge through the articulation of discourses. From this kindof viewpoint, methamphetamine and nationalism were discur-sively joined in Japan in the post-war period, and dialoguebetween them yielded a movement against external forcesthat were presumed to be hostile. The merit of this type ofinterpretation is that we can describe relationships betweenthe discourses without assuming any causal relationship.



As stated at the outset of this article, it was widely believedimmediately after the Second World War that Japan had amethamphetamine problem because of the then prevailingsocial disorder, which produced large numbers of cases ofmethamphetamine psychosis. However, through carefulanalyses of the historical record, an alternative interpretationbecomes possible. Methamphetamine discourse and national-ism joined in the 1950s, articulated each other, and broughtinto being the dominant narratives of today.

1. Nagai first mentioned methamphetamine (Phenyl-methylamino-propan) in an article published in 1893 (Nagai, 1893). However,according to Miura, Nagai discovered it while researching Maou(“Ma Huang” in Chinese) in 1888 (Miura, 1941). Miura experi-mented with Nagai’s extracts of Maou (Ibid. Yamashita, 1966).

2. Methamphetamine (Phenyl-methylaminopropan) and amphetamine(Phenyl-aminopropan) both belong to a family of ephedrine-basedstimulant drugs. However, their structural formulas are slightly dif-ferent from each other. Methamphetamine has CH3 (a methyl group)instead of H at one end of the formula of amphetamine. This differ-ence is thought to make methamphetamine more effective thanamphetamine.

3. Since the 1970s, stimulants, including methamphetamine, have beencalled Shabu in common parlance in Japan. In recent years, it hassometimes been called Speed or S (for Speed).

4. Much of the stock of methamphetamine in the Armed Forces wasconfiscated by General Headquarters (GHQ) after the war. The GHQsubsequently returned it to the Ministry of the Health and Welfare(National Diet, 1949, November 30).

5. The author conducted interviews with elderly people, including vet-erans, in March 1997 and January 2006. Interviews with youngerpeople using stimulants and other drugs in Japan are also available inSato (2000).

6. The Ministry of Health and Welfare produced many administrativeguidelines and regulations on stimulants (methamphetamine andamphetamine) after 1948. One of its most popular measures definedstimulants as strong medicine. Strong medicine means that identifica-tion and usage outline was needed at time of purchase; also, personsunder fourteen years of age could not purchase it. On August 15,1948 ministry regulation no. 37 under the Pharmaceutical AffairsLaw defined any such medicine of over 1mg per tablet as strong

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Notes


medicine. And on March 28, 1949 the ministry amended the regula-tion to define all tablets and powder containing methamphetamineand amphetamine as strong medicine. Before this amendment wasput in place, the ministry had announced to pharmaceutical compa-nies that it had a plan to control the sale of all stimulants, and thatthese medicines needed to alert consumers that they might causehabituation (Ikuta, 1951; National Diet, 1950, December 5).

7. Interestingly, people who were deemed to fall in this category couldtalk about their experiences of methamphetamine in the same terms.For example, the novelist Ango Sakaguchi (1906–1955) wrote:“When the drug does not work so effectively, you could just getanother one. It is important that you should start with a smallamount. You must not accept the mundane belief that stimulants donot have any effect unless you increase the dosage; I did not experi-ence any harm from those. It is sleeping tablets that harm yourhealth” (Sakaguchi, 1950, p. 7). Following his death, Sakaguchi hasbecome famous for his use of stimulants, in part because of an essaywritten in 1958 by Shiro Ozaki, another novelist and one of Sak-aguchi’s friends (Ozaki, 1958). At a time when claims were beingmade concerning the psychotic-inducing effects of stimulants, Ozakistated that after 1949 Sakaguchi himself was psychotic.

8. This type of discourse is called “attribution talk” in discourse analy-sis (Edwards & Potter, 1992).

9. This was one among several possible interpretations. He had longsuffered from tuberculosis and several times had experienced hemop-tysis (spitting of blood), for which he had received medical treat-ment. His methamphetamine use might thus be interpreted asreflective of his character, a point that was made in some essaysabout him (Fujisawa, 1978).

10. Inoue’s concern presumably was based on an article in Asahi Shin-bun a week earlier, entitled “Young Philopon Patients: Theft andExtortion to Earn Money for Philopon: Metropolitan Police Beginsto Control” (Shounen Philopon Kanja: Kusuridai Hosisa karaNusumi ya Yusuri: Keishityo Torishimari ni Nori Dasu) (Asahi Shin-bun, 1949, 19 Oct.).

11. For example, an article entitled “Juvenile Philoponia” (ShounenPhiloponia) in the magazine Shukan Asahi on December 12, 1949stated that street children bought vitamin and dextrose ampoulesbecause they needed something to keep their energy high when theycould not get Philopon. For many children, especially those withoutparents in urban areas, food was difficult to obtain. Research studydone in March 1947 showed that the number of runaway childrenhad increased three times since 1945 and that most of them ranaway from urban areas to countryside to get food (Akatsuka, 1982,pp. 17-18).



12. On October 11, 1950 the newspaper Saitama Shinbun reported theincident under the headline “Mass Sexual Assault by a DelinquentGroup in Tsuchiai Village, Six People Including Women Arrested”(“Huryou Ren ga Shuudan Boukou, Tsuchiai Mura, Onna mo MazaruRokumei Kenkyo”) (Saitama Shinbun, 1950, October 11). Twoweeks later, Saitama Shinbun described the police investigations inthe village and stated that “over one hundred were raped” (Okasaretamono Hyakunin Ijou) (Saitama Shinbun, 1950, October 23). Thesame report attributed the incident to the presence of only onepoliceman in the village and the indifference of parents to their chil-dren’s behavior. However, the police had a different view, claimingthat Tsuchiai had long been famous for its brutality and that thecause of the incident was the stimulants that were used by almost allthose arrested; further, they blamed the manufacturer of the stimu-lants, Toyama Chemical (National Council of Youth Problems, 1950:98). In addition, in a debate in the Diet in November 1950, anotherculprit was identified: indecent magazines, known as “KasutoriZasshi,” which were widely circulated in post-war Japan (NationalDiet, 1950, November 29).

13. Kondo (1955) argued that the “Mass Sexual Assault Incident” wasrelatively more important than the actions of Toyama Chemical inthe passage of the Stimulant Control Law because it showed thatNeoagotin addiction and psychosis was at the root of such behavior.However, Kondo discussed it retrospectively in 1955. This suggeststhat the psychotic effects of methamphetamine were not an issue in1950; certainly, they were not mentioned in Diet debates. These wereelaborated upon mainly after 1954.

14. Interestingly, in the ensuing debate in the Diet over stimulant-controllegislation, one representative (who later became one of the authors ofthe final bill) stated that the bill should focus only on limiting use, onthe ground that the New Police Force itself (which later became theSelf-Defence Armed Forces of Japan) intended to use stimulants. Thisopinion was criticized by the psychopathologists who testified beforethe Diet (National Diet, 1951, February 15). Nevertheless, it suggeststhat the use of stimulants did not necessarily elicit strong reactions inall circles and that some could still talk about their positive effects.

15. Ueno is a town in the Taito district, to the east of Tokyo, where manysmugglers were alleged to have sold methamphetamine.

16. This was Shou Hayashi, M.D., the director of Matsuzawa Hospital ofTokyo (Asahi Shinbun, 1951, May 7).

17. However, addicts were not always treated as criminals, as they aretoday. The chief of the Metropolitan Police, responding to the Dietrepresentative who argued that addicts should be arrested and treatedas criminals, said that addicts should be treated as patients unlessthey committed crimes (National Diet, 1954, May 20).

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18. See Sacks, 1970 (1992), pp. 215-221, and Edwards, 1997, pp. 71-72.Sacks’s discussion of “doing ‘being ordinary’” sees ordinariness as aconcerted interactional accomplishment.

19. For example, an opinion survey conducted in October 1983 showedthat 94% of the respondents who said that that they knew the word“stimulant” answered yes when asked whether they realized thehabit-forming nature of methamphetamine. And 94% of the subjectsstated that one became paranoid after using the stimulant for sometime (Cabinet Office, 1984). In a similar opinion survey in January2006, 98.3% of the respondants said that methamphetamine was adrug terrifying in its effects; 89.4% said that it was terrifyingbecause it led to intoxication; and 70.9% said that a person becameaddicted to it after using it only once (Cabinet Office, 2006).

20. It was believed for a long time, even by recovered alcoholics and bythose who supported recovery from alcoholism, that stimulant addic-tion could not be similarly overcome (Kondo, 1997, 2000).

21. The inspection continued in the next month, November 1953, when,following the passage of the law for establishing the Council ofYouth Problems that June, “the campaign for protecting young peo-ple” (Seishounen Hogo Ikusei Undou) was launched.

22. The Chief of the Metropolitan Police and the director of the crimi-nal-investigation division of the National Police related how they hadscrutinized possible connections between the Japanese CommunistParty, other communist activists, and Korean manufacturers andsmugglers of illegal substances; however, firm evidence of such con-nections was still lacking (National Diet, 1954, 20 May).

23. As time passed, the identity of the hostile forces discussed inmethamphetamine narratives gradually changed, the new targetsbeing Japanese gangs (1970s and 1980s), Iranian migrants to Japanseeking employment (1990s), and, currently, North Korean agents.

24. Recall the article “The Actual Conditions of Terrible Illness (Philo-pon) that Disrupts Our Country,” cited above, in which an ex-user ofmethamphetamine narrated his past problems. As this exampleshows, nationalist discourse functions as the frame of the narrative ofthe user of methamphetamine.



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Documents

Methamphetamine Use in Japan after the Second World War: Transformation of Narratives