Japanese police recorded a record of investigating 6,832 individuals in cases related to marijuana in Japan in 2025, an increase of 754 from the previous year, according to police data released earlier this month.
The National Police Agency said people in their 20s and younger accounted for more than 70 percent of the total, Kyodo News reported (3/4).
Furthermore, social media is believed to play a role in how this generation of young people gets access to the drugs.
The largest proportion is people in their 20s, namely 3,633, an increase of 283. Next is 1,373 people under the age of 20, an increase of 245. Of these, 28 are junior high school students and 315 are high school students.
Japan criminalizes the use of marijuana under the revised Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Control Law which comes into force in December 2024, and 700 people were investigated under the law the following year.
A police survey of 1,006 individuals investigated for potential violations of the law between November and December 2025 revealed that more than 40 percent of respondents in their 20s and under had interacted with drug dealers online.
Many are believed to have been in contact with dealers via social media platforms, such as X, and exchanged messages via encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram, police said.
Meanwhile, the total number of people investigated for drug-related offenses increased by 1,112 from the previous year, reaching 14,574.
Of that number, 2,124 are members or associates of the Yakuza syndicate and 1,887 are believed to be members of an organized crime group known as “tokuryu.”
Among those investigated, there were 1,502 foreign nationals.
The number of people investigated for stimulant use reached 6,395, an increase of 271, although still far from the peak of 19,722 in 1997.
Meanwhile, the number of individuals investigated for cocaine use reached a record high of 804, an increase of 218 from 2024.
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