| Popis: |
Contemporary observers note Japan’s relative success in suppressing illegal drugs, projecting this image of abstinence onto the past. Recent scholarship debunks Japan’s historical reputation as a drug-free nation. The 1890s through the 1950s marked the nation’s most intensive engagement with narcotics. At the height of Western imperialism, the exclusion of opium, a symbol of dependency, came to signify Japan’s capacity for sovereignty. When Japan itself became an empire in 1895, administrators in the East Asia territories tried to eradicate morphine and heroin in keeping with international norms, even as they sought to profit from state drug sales. Finally, after Japan’s 1945 occupation by the victorious Allies, the nation experienced one the world’s first methamphetamine epidemics. Belying the national image of abstinence, public campaigns against stimulants helped restore a shattered national sense of social agency. The resolution of the crisis also erased it from public memory with the illusion of a confidently drug-free nation. |
