Social conservatism and religious fundamentalism tend to provide such responses to youth crime. We can find clues to young people's alienation in their own voices. One teenager, interviewed by my colleague Hidetada Shimizu, said that adults weren't straightforward themselves and that she was very uncomfortable with what appeared to her to be their definition of growing up, the accommodation to the tatemae . She felt zurui , or slippery, sneaky and two-faced, in learning that you need to behave situationally. Growing up meant constantly negotiating the difference between tatemae and honne .
Drug abuse is only one manifestation of a convergence of issues in contemporary Japanese society.
It is NOT materialism, Western individualism, or teachers' avoidance of responsibility. It is not only the availability of pagers and phone cards, allowing for drug deals to be made in confidence. Before significant progress can be made against drug abuse, the complexity of contemporary problems must be addressed. All rights reserved.