Mr Marui himself was awarded a research license for cannabis. Many environmental activists embrace the plant for its ecological potential and would like to obtain licenses to grow trial crops. Various regional hemp festivals attract tourists and try to educate the public. Cannabis was commonly prescribed for various ailments in Japan until the 1948 law made it unavailable. There are many hemp shops all over the country, some of which also function as head shops selling pipes and water pipes.
Most customers are Japanese, naturally.
Owner Koichi Maeda estimates that more than 2 million Japanese may have smoked cannabis at one time, many while staying abroad in Europe, North America, Australia or New Zealand. Not only are hemp seeds used in the food served there, even the furniture is made from fibre board manufactured from legally grown Japanese hemp, demonstrating its unmatched versatility. Activists such as Mr Maeda and Mr Marui are using the Internet to spread Japanese language information about cannabis, to counter the prejudice and ignorance facing cannabis in Japan after half a century of prohibition. The task they have set themselves is not an easy one, in a society with Confucian values that treats all illicit drugs as highly taboo while it virtually ignores the arguably greater harm from legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco. Today, Japan is in the middle of its third amphetamine wave since the war, with almost half as many people arrested for speed every year as there are people in prison in the whole country.