Natsukashii “Japan Trip” - When Magic ‘Shrooms Were Legal
Ao on Mar 29 2007 at 12:38 am | Filed under: Japan: Only in Japan
Until June 2002 Magic Mushrooms were legal in Japan
Japan, despite its lax attitude toward tobacco and alcohol, has always been very strict when it comes to matters of “more illicit” drugs. Laws regulating soft drugs such as marijuana are as strict as those toward heroin and cocaine. This was not so until the American Constitution was imposed on Japan after World War II; actually hemp has been an integral part of Japanese culture and religion since ancient times (see www.taima.org for more details), but that is another article altogether.
Generally, restrictions on all drugs in Japan are so strong that it is not uncommon for customs officers to seize over-the-counter foreign cold medicines, and possession of cannabis can lead to weeks in jail. The most famous victim of this law is Beatle Paul McCartney, who spent nine days in jail in 1980 for the possession of 219 grams (7.7 ounces) of marijuana.
Magic Mushroom street vendor in Shibuya, Tokyo
In a country this strict, it may surprise some people to know that magic mushrooms were legal in Japan until June 6, 2002. A loophole in the Japanese law banned psilocybin in extracted or pure chemical form but not the actual mushrooms themselves. Thus, magic mushrooms, sealed in plastic wrap, could be purchased alongside weed pipes and Bob Marley posters in head shops throughout Japan. I’m not sure about the specifics of the law, but the packages I saw said “観賞用” (Basically look but don’t eat) on them. Of course, everyone was eating them, from college students to gaijin to bored housewives. It must have been the housewives, or perhaps the threat of hooligans at the 2002 World Cup that prodded the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor & Welfare to close up the loophole.
Luckily, we had some advance warning. There was a bit of lag time between the decision to outlaw magic mushrooms and the date that the law came into effect. All of the head shops had signs up reminding their customers that they had until June 6, 2002 to stock up on as many mushrooms as possible. This is the story of my experience during this period of lawlessness.
Working as JET’s in rural Japan, my friend and I knew that a weekend trip to Kobe/Osaka would be necessary to score some mushrooms. We had both tried them before in our respective home countries, and thought we knew what we were getting into. The shops were not hard to find - there were several under the tracks of Kobe’s Sannomiya Station. We bought what they had in stock and proceeded to Osaka to test out our newfound purchases at an underground Shinsaibashi club.
It was hard to believe that we had just legally bought mushrooms and were about to eat them in public. But there they were, legally purchased magic mushrooms, smelling like dirty socks, sitting in our hands.
This is what ‘Shrooms look like when you buy them
It was time to eat. Since the mushrooms were “観賞用” they didn’t exactly have the serving size and nutritional value printed on the packaging. They looked to be about 1/8 of an ounce, the average size of one “hit” back in the states. Only later would we figure out that 1/8 of this species of Dutch ’shrooms (’shrooms - as they are called - are usually a less potent Mexican species in the U.S.) was enough to make 6 grown men see Jesus.
So at first, we were having a pretty good time - there is a certain confidence that ’shrooms impart and it seemed like everybody loved us - we had the whole place under control. Control… I gradually began to lose control of my body slowly but surely. I was fully conscious but was stuck in an “observer” state. I needed to lay down. The last thing I saw before I turned comatose was my friend standing on the bar kicking over other peoples’ drinks. Then I got a good ten minutes of ceiling watching in before two monsters with Down Syndrome began trying to tear me limb from limb (actually they were a couple of Australian guys who had called me an ambulance and were lugging me up the stairs and out of the club - thanks guys if you ever read this).
The mushrooms ran their course through my body and I experienced something that can only be described as flickering in and out of existence (yes these were strong drugs!). Being placed in the ambulance triggered a fear reaction and brought me back down to Earth. The nice young paramedic patiently tried to get my to write down my name and address, but I was determined to write on the air instead of on the paper. He seemed to know what mushrooms were, and had seen cases like me before. “Are magic mushrooms bad for you?” I asked him. Wheeling me out of the ambulance and into the E.R., he replied, “Well, they’re not good for you.”
The doctors and nurses in the E.R. were a bit more clueless. I had already fessed up to my semi-illegal deed, so I figured it was too late to change my story, but I felt a little silly explaining what magic mushrooms were to the emergency room doctor. He had never heard of them before and had to look them up on the internet. 
The internet?? How do you become a doctor in Japan anyway? The nurse seemed not to want to release me, but I lied to her and said that my hallucinations had stopped, and she let me go after I signed the appropriate forms. Luckily my employer never found out about the whole debacle, and thanks to Japan’s health insurance system, the ambulance ride only cost me about 1,000 yen!
So, you ask, whatever happened to my friend dancing on the bar? He got tackled and was nearly choked to death by club security. He had also apparently jumped onto a ceiling lamp and pulled it out of the socket. He ripped some girl’s designer clothes too, so club security tried to threaten him into paying 100,000 yen for damages, saying that the bar was yakuza owned and they’d be there any minute. Somehow he managed to hand someone a 10,000 yen bill and slip away. Needless to say, the next day neither of us were in the mood for any more magic mushrooms. Which was probably for the best since the extras we bought had somehow disappeared at some point that night anyway.
This story is here to entertain, but I hope it does make some people think seriously about the drug policies of Japan and other countries. Although I got off scott-free in early 2002, the same stunt today could earn you up to 7 years in prison! What a difference a silly little law makes. A good Japanese friend of mine swore he would never try “Drugs” like marijuana, but in return he offered me a cigarette dipped in paint thinner. Almost all societies have a long way to go in creating rational drug policies. In the meantime, let’s all just be sure to stay out of trouble.
On that note, if you do have any stories where you pushed the limit with drugs in Japan, let us know with a comment below!
Other stippy.com articles possibly of interest:
34 Responses to “Natsukashii “Japan Trip” - When Magic ‘Shrooms Were Legal”
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Interestingly enough, Salvia is still legal in the US, and it has some serious hallucinogenic effects. I’ve never tried mushrooms, but the effects might be similar. It might be the same kind of loophole here that keeps things like Salvia legal while less-potent drugs like marijuana illegal. Drug laws are messed up…
I have had my fair share of “Green Pizzas” in Japan. I am not sure where my colleagues got the green stuff from, but it always amounted to a fun night in roppers afterwards! When you eat it, it lasts almost all night, and even has nutritional value. Needless to say, getting caught was the last thing I thought about after ingesting and getting on the Hibiya line!
Uh Oh!! I feel Vanya (see here) may have something to say about my forays into the green stuff.
Living in the Netherlands, this story is actually quite funny. Can you remember how much you paid for them? The street price over here is about 10 euro (1500 yen) for 4 gram (0.15 ounce).
On the other side; a few days ago a French tourist killed herself after eating too many (that’s how the story goes anyway).
Unfortunately, I’ve only got a bit of a story from here in the States, but I find it amusing, nonetheless. To put it in a nutshell, I became aware of reality in my shower with tons of colorful beads and a pacifier in my mouth. I figured I needed to get out when the shower started doing barrel rolls and I had no clue where I was.
Drug laws in Japan scare the hell out of me, and the lies published by the Japanese goverment (see http://www.cannabist.org/database/koukaiseikyu200404/index.html for more info) don’t help. I stay away from pot in Japan because the prospect of a few years in jail scares the hell out of me.
On an interesting side note, one of the side-effects of ingesting magic mushrooms is a belief you can fly. The most famous case of this in recent years was the actor Kubotosuka Yousuke (of Go and Kyouki No Sakura fame), who did a duck dive off his apartment balcony, breaking a number of bones when he bounced off a store front cover. At first people blamed depression etc. for the jump, but it soon came to light that shrooms were to blame.
I’ve seen shops selling “powdered shrooms”, but on closer inspection found the “powder” to be mescaline, a different hallucinogen known for it”s power to make you severely nauseous, unable to walk, and see demons. I think the best thing is to be very wary of what head shops are putting in their display windows.
Allen, was it your pacifier?
This is a shocking story. You guys are lucky you didnt end up in the slammer next to George, tearing up the inside of the bar, or for assault or whatever. It took George much less. This is the kind of stuff that gives gaijins a bad name.
Tim,
(About the price) That’s the ironic part. Even when they were legal in Japan I was paying more (3,000 - 5,000 yen per 1/8 ounce bag) than I would have back home in the states ($20).
BigNoseBill,
Correct you are, we were both very lucky to have a. lived through the situation and b. avoided police or yakuza involvement. Reading George’s story inspired me to write my whole experience up. If I did get 7 years, hell I’d still be in Japan right now.
Did my friend and I give gaijins a bad name? Well, all I can say is there’s some good and some bad in everyone. I’ve seen Japanese guys go nuts in altered states as well (though not quite so ferociously as my buddy that night). Drugs may not be your thing, and that’s why this is appalling to you, but no need to drop the G-bomb.
I hesitate to ask, but…is absinthe still legal in Japan? I would imagine it to be horrendously expensive, were it legally available.
Absinthe was made illegal a few years back. You can still find the odd bottle here and there in really old bottleshops where the turnover is really bad. Aside from that, you need to buy it on the net. This site for example: http://www.originalabsinthe.com
That is a funny story! (all worked out in the end but yeah could have been disasterously different.) I bought mushrooms on a street stall in ‘99, which was pretty funny. Not much kick to them though, if any, ‘coz we proceeded to smoke a bit of hooch and downed a few beers anyway.
Absinthe was better. Wow. Had it one time only in New Zealand in ‘02. The night just went crazy after a few shots of that stuff. Hilarious night. The next day having lunch in the middle of the town, on two ocassions locals came past looking at us funny. One even pointed and laughed, saying “hey, you are the guys from the pub last night… ha ha ha!”. Don’t know what we did to deserve that but I do recall my mate getting locked out and his face appearing randomly at all the windows trying to get let back in.
The magic mushroom days were good ones indeed! Also had an Iranian buddy at the English school we worked at who used to sort me out with very potent hashish through his Shibuya buddies. You could dab a tiny bit on the end of a cigarette and set sail - and a 3,000 yen stick could last you months. But as for the question of pushing the law, it wasn’t intentional - but on my way back into Japan after a two-week trip back home to Australia (which manifested into a bit of a bender) I was stopped by the customs dude at Nagasaki airport to open my luggage - and when I did I noticed the cannister of weed that I’d been carrying around in Australia hidden in the corner of my bag. Old mate looks in. My heart stops. Then he just says, ‘thanks” and handed my passport back.
Phew…
Had a great first month back in Japan though!
Unfortulately I have interject when I hear such crazy government propaganda
, “one of the side-effects of ingesting magic mushrooms is a belief you can fly”
It’s very interesting in the at least one hundred times I have taken shrooms, flying has never entered my mind or the minds of the individuals I have tripped with. This reminds me of the government propaganda that smoking weed make boys grow boobs or that there is Strychnine in LSD,
Come on RY please do the human race a favor and think for yourself, instead of regurgitating government propaganda
“Japan, despite its lax attitude toward tobacco and alcohol…”
What’s lax about the law in Japan? You can’t drink or smoke until 20. Better than the US for booze but worse than most European countries for both.
I’ve seen 6 year olds at liquor stores buying shochu for their dads… although the law may be strict, it’s not enforced. Think beer vending machines. No ID checks at clubs. I’ve even heard of high school students in their uniforms being let into bars.
Unfortunately, I’ve heard that this is changing in Japan. Anyone experienced a change in enforcement of alcohol/tobacco laws? I heard a rumor they’re going to do away with the vending machines.
Doesn’t look like they’re stopping the vending machines. You can’t smoke anywhere in the public other then the scarce smoking areas(little rooms or small outdoor areas,primarily filled with businessmen smoking)available.
However you can find a cigarette/tobacco vending machine 5 feet in any direction.
They’re not completely doing away with cigaratte vending machines but it is likely that the number is reduced dramatically over the next three years or so. The government has been experimenting in Tanegashima over the last four years with new vending machines that require you to show an ID before they let you buy your fags. It doesn’t mean that they are trying to get rid of the vending machines, they are just trying to make it harder for kids to buy (as I guess they assume that kids won’t borrow their 20 year old friend’s ID cards). Anyway, the experiment was “successful” and so now they are talking about rolling this out to the entire country - probably in the next 2 years.
As you can guess, it isn’t cheap adding an ID card reader to every vending machine accross the country so it is likely that the tobacco companies don’t bother replacing a bunch of the machines when/if the new law comes into place.
I haven’t heard any similar whispers about beer vending machines though…
So where are the head shops in Tokyo? I was wandering around Shimokitazawa, and despite every second shop having some sort of mushroom-related paraphenalia in it, I didn’t really come upon anywhere.
There was a cool shop where you could smoke a hookah, though. But smoking “food” is not really my thing…
Near work in Shibuya a cigarette vending machine was replaced with a card reading new machine. Is this a sign of a JT comitment to roll out the machines in advance of the new law? In my mind JT has way too much money and is trying disparately to find ways to use it. Bring back Burger King, I say.
Me and my girlfriend are going to Japan to visit her extended family in Hiroshima in August.
I have never been to the land of the rising sun before and I am a bit of a midnight toker and so is my girlfriend.
I am just wondering if it is extremely hard to find places where you can buy something like a dime or so. Is it like any other place and just look for where the young people are hanging out in the club districts or is it much more difficult than that?
We live in Vancouver so its not a big deal here at all to be caught smoking or with a tiny amount.
I just want to know if its even worth the trouble for us to go around looking for something that might be impossible to find and which seems to be ridiculously frowned upon by local police.
Shinji, I’m a Canadian in Okayama (to the right of Hiroshima). I’ve been here five months and haven’t been able to get ANYTHING… and it’s not for lack of trying.
Went to a rave in Osaka a few months back; A few people were obviously rolling and some admitted it, saw people outright snorting coke lines in the bathrooms, smelled weed briefly around the dance floor, so we knew stuff was there available. Didn’t want coke (I don’t do that shit), but we were looking hard into whatever else we could get, were making friends and had people looking for us too… and then we were just kind of dropped in the Japanese way (a kind of trailing off and polite “maybe maybe”) Same thing here in Okayama… we’ve been doing our damndest to track down our stuff through what should be fairly reliable sources and we’re dropped in the same way (goes from extremely helpful to just trailing off… no one ever says an outright “sorry, can’t help you”… it’s not the Japanese way).
it’s really come across that you DON’T want to get caught with anything here, thus the difficulty in obtaining anything since they don’t want to sell to strangers… and if you can find some, it seems the odds of Yakuza tie-ins are pretty high so some of our contacts have told us, “if I help you, it’s a one-time deal”
But I’ve heard that MJ here is pretty damn crappy (weak, very dry and comes practically powdered) and expensive ($100 for a gram) so if you’re from BC, I’m betting it wouldn’t be worth your while… maybe try to sneak a pinner of your own stash in or something if you’re so desperate, but sometimes they have dogs in the airport so hide it well.
On a lighter note, a 26 of Smirnoff vodka is ~1000 yen here (or ten bucks CDN) and other hard liquor is cheap too, as is beer and coolers… in the store, buying drinks at the club is like 500-700 yen… drink before you go out.
Enjoy your trip in august
Many thanks for the info Bunny.
I am not desperate or crazy enough to bring drugs over international borders, so it’s quite alright if I have no weed while in Japan.
I just can’t believe those damn prices…that is just madness, however since the laws and authorities are pretty damn harsh on the whole Marijuana thing (unlike in North America), I can certainly understand why there is such a high cost.
I guess me and my girlfriend will just have to do with good old alcohol, although she is not much of a drinker.
Still I am sure the trip will be worth while.
Bunny, I’ve heard people getting “designer” psychedelics from kiosks in Tokyo recently.
Does anyone know if 2c-t-7 is still legal in Japan? I’ve scoured the net and can’t find anything saying it isn’t. A new drug law was planned for March 2007 but I don’t know if it’s been introduced and what it covers.
Thanks for any info.
Shinji this may not help you but I’ll give it my best shot.
The best way of course is to meet friends in Japan who are into drugs. You can meet them at parties/raves. If Japanese friends won’t open up, I have met Indonesian and Persian (Iranian) guys at clubs that sold me stuff before. You may find westerners using but they will probably only have personal use quantities and won’t be selling (doesn’t hurt to ask tho)
You can try the condom up the ass trick, but I don’t know if dogs can smell that far up or not (you don’t want to get caught smuggling… read George’s prison stories for a preview of what that’s like). If you do go that route, avoid the inflight meal
Holy crap, if you losers are into drugs do NOT bother coming to Japan. It’s already hard enough to live here as a foreigner without our reputation being further sullied by scumbag druggies who get caught smuggling or using illicit drugs.
Stay the hell in your own country, scummies.
Why don’t YOU go back to your own country if you’re so worried about your precious reputation, you narrow minded fascist? No one’s forcing you to live in Japan. Take your small ideas back where you came from if you find living here difficult.
Scumbag biggots, we don’t want you here. Go home to mummy.
Yaeyama,
It always surprises me to hear opinions like yours. Don’t assume that the current drug laws make sense or are based on any form of science. The current legal status of marijuana is roughly equivalent to alcohol’s prohibition in the U.S. in the 1920’s.
Last time I came to Japan, I smuggled 3 bottles of an addictive, mind-altering substance. They searched my bags yet I did not end up in prison. The substance is called alcohol.
This could all have been avoided if the mushrooms were dosed in a better location. A busy club or bar is pretty much one of the worst places to eat mushrooms, in my opinion. For example, a better place would be in your bedroom, so you could lie down and have the experience without being bothered. Or a remote secluded spot in nature. Anyways, being ferried off to the hospital is better than the jail house I suppose.
To stand on a bar kicking drinks over seems a bizzar reaction to mushrooms. (But everyone’s different, I guess.) Usually if someone’s having a bad trip they become very withdrawn and don’t say much, though if they do it won’t make any sense. Smashing stuff up is a much more commonly a result of too much alcohol.
You guys are both right. To anyone considering psychedelics, you should try them at a safe, quiet setting with good friends, preferrably with at least one person sober to look out for you.
I didn’t write about it in this article, but earlier that same day we ate some Mexican shrooms (the weaker variety) and had an amazing experience at Kaiyukan, the aquarium in Osaka. The penguins’ fur was so shiny and beautiful, and the seal’s eyes looked so deep and intelligent. I felt like I was communicating with him (he was underwater, I was on the other side of the glass). When I moved my water bottle, I discovered I could make him do back flips and turn his body just like I was turning the bottle. Amazing animal. I was drawing a small crowd, and some kids asked if I worked there. Even after I was done playing with him, he followed me around wanting to play more. The best part was the jellyfish, under those trippy blacklights. They look like creatures from another planet (even if you’re not on anything). So, yeah, I do think that shrooms are better in a natural environment.
As for my buddy and his strange behavior, he kept exclaiming, “I’m controlling space and time!” and he was dancing with all sorts of girls, ripping off his Superman shirt to expose his hairy chest, etc (he works out). He was the life of the party until he took things overboard. I wouldn’t describe his experience as a bad trip. Just a bad decision, he he.
Came across this page when searching the net tonight as I am heading to Japan in a few days for the second time and was wondering about mushrooms/psychedelics in Japan.
Basically the first time I was there I was basically on a 2 week bender out in Shibuya pretty much every night heavy drinking and hitting up all the clubs. One niht in CLub Atom I was fairly drunk and was dancing to some crazy psy-trance when 2 Japanese guys came up to me and started repeating “Ganja, ganja” and laughing. As I walked back towards the bar they came up to me again and started asking if I like ganja and charrie. Charlie, what they weere trying to say is slang for coke in the UK, where I am from. I thouht drugs were a maor no-no in Japan but these guys got me excited so I asked a bit more about ti and the guys said they would ask for me. I have no idea why they ust came up and started asking me to begin with though. Basically the club closed and as I was leaving one of the guys came up to me and said he can get me ecstacy. I told my friend and he as interested so the guy took me down the road to meet some very shady looking guy with full body tattoos, standing there with his hands in his pockets ust staring through me not saying a word. I started thinking the whole thing was a bad idea and told the guy it was cool.
Another thing I was wanting to mention was that I used to order a lot of 2c-i, 2ct7, 2ct2, 2ce, 5MeO-DMT, etc to the UK from an online source that was located in Shinjuku. So I know that stuff must be available in Japan and I read kinoko’s post above alluding to that. I was wondering if anyone has any information on any of the 2c analogues and their availability/legality on Japan. I understand running around taking drugs is a stupid move but I would love to have a day/night of tripping in Tokyo, I imagine it would be pretty fucking insane.
Any info is greatly appreciated.
my e-mail is ecky@hushmail.com if anyone wants to share anything.
I was in tokyo 2006-2007…onece i decide to get a trip on srooms.wolking at shibuya streets i eet arabian guy,who was magic sroom dealers.he told me to go to ebisu station and call them…..10 minut after a was at ebisu so i make call,he told me to wait near higashi guchi street…after 10 minut some arabian guy come and i bye from him ecstasy one pill,why ecstasy???he told me that he does not have more shrooms..5000 yen 1 ecstasy….i took it oraly imediatly and go in subway station imediatly….near the ticket box police took me and make me body chak and pasport control….one policmen told me sorry but you have to folov us at the police station for 15 min to make shure that i am not druged or sumsin ellse..they can not finde nothing because i alredy taken pill….
i remeber that i am asking to police man??what are you looking for,gun,knif,and hi ask me tahat not gun or knife but HEROIN,COCA,SHROOMS,AND EXT…hahaaa:)))))after 15 minute they give me to go away….but waht is funny in this story:))))one yer i was back and back at ebisu station and byeng some times EXT some time SHROOMS some time COCA and LSD but never cought me again police…….but i am very fortunato….
for my experience japan drug law is very strict…if police cought you for one gram hash or ext they deport you cuait promtly,or you can stay for long triip to japan prision….SORY FOR MY ENGLISH……
shrooms are so good. only if i could find some these days