As activities to take part in during summer vacation, there are internships, volunteer activities, and trips abroad. However, it is also a season where one gets tempted by the lure of drugs, with more and more people being arrested at airports with drugs found in their belongings. Recently, the increasingly sophisticated sales of drugs have been a huge problem domestically. Best known is the use of the Internet and mobile phones to tempt new drug users. Catchy phrases such as "Do away with your tiredness," "Make yourself feel alive!" "You can easily lose weight" have been attracting youngsters. No mention is made of the fact that they often lead to brain damage and even death, sometimes as a result of a single session. Of course, mild curiosity about drugs also helps to fund international crime groups, and users themselves may get involved in serious crime. What a waste of a life!

The third period of “mass drug abuse” since the end of war.
Japan is recognized as having strict laws concerning drug abuse compared with countries overseas. However, following periods in the 1950s and 1980s, the spread of drug abuse intensified from 1997, leading to the so called Third Mass Drug Abuse Period. Moreover, violation of the Cannabis Control Law has been growing as well. People arrested for the use of drugs have not declined in number?on the contrary, their numbers have been increasing dramatically. After 2005, the number of confiscated pill-form drugs, such as MDMA (or ecstasy), surpassed 570,000, which turned out to be the highest ever. Moreover, new drug abuse, the illegal use of other chemical substances has become common. Due to that, of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law has been amended.

International Attempts at Regulation
Behind the sales of illicit drugs are international drug sales groups who repeatedly smuggle diverse kinds of drugs and narcotics around the world. No longer can one country eliminate drug abuse on its own, so the United Nations Drug Control Conference now takes the lead in trying to regulate international drug traffic. As of now, there are three international treaties, such as the “United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.” Most countries, including Japan, has enacted regulations on the production and selling of drugs, and conducted research on how much one can earn through this illicit trade, as well as on what kind of chemical substances are used to make a drug.

Drugs, marijuana, narcotics ・・・not only those of powders or crystals of so called, 'white powder.' agent oranged, tea leaved, resin iced, liquid form, pill form, they have a huge variety. The names differentiate in numerous numbers, the pictures
on the packages are designed to make people attracted to its features! Don’t get fooled!

■References
“Current National Sanitation The Guidance of Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare Temporary Edition” （published Aug. 2007）P262~264