drugs!

If you come from a western country, chances are your view on drugs is drastically different from that of people in Asia. Throughout the region, anti-drug laws can be far stricter, and Japan is no exception – while many of us in the west might think nothing of the idea of a friend smoking a little bit of pot every now and then, many Japanese would react like to the same news like they’d just heard their friend regularly smokes crack cocaine.

It’s little wonder then, that going hand-in-hand with stricter drug laws is an intense anti-drug campaign that offers the catch-phrase “Dame. Zettai.” Translated roughly as “NO. NEVER,” or “absolutely not,” the phrase can be seen on posters and in schools throughout Japan, and of course, part of these anti-drug education efforts includes getting kids to contribute their own posters.

But one child’s drawing has sparked fits of laughter online thanks to its mind-bending portrayal of drug-induced madness.

Japan has another anti-drug catch-phrase in addition to “Dame. Zettai.” The one this child used was the significantly more ominous: “Isshun ga issho wo ubau” (一瞬が一生を奪う), which means “Your life can be taken in an instant.” Of course, in this case, “ubau” means literally to be taken away — suggesting that you’ll never recover from taking drugs just once and you’ll be addicted and ruined forever.

While you may scoff at such an overly dramatized portrayal of drug use, this elementary school student apparently believed it fully — and we’re starting to worry it may have broken his mind! Here’s the full poster, in all its horrifying, “bad trip” glory.

lotsadrugsHayabusa 2channel

Got that, kids? Do drugs and you’ll go insane. And be dragged off by a giant spider.

Japanese commenters were pretty entertained by this kid’s artistry:

“YIKES! This is horrifying!”
“This drawing makes it seem like he’s tried drugs once.”
“I don’t think it’s actually THIS bad…”
“I’m worried more about this kid than people addicted to drugs!”
“Well, if you take LSD, mushrooms, and pot all at once, what do you expect to happen?!”
“Why do elementary students know about LSD and MDMA? What the hell kind of education is this?!”

One exchange between a group of commenters was particularly enlightening:

“Kids these days know about magic mushrooms?”
“Well, they have these anti-drug classes so much, they probably learn and remember it there.”
“Ah, I see what you mean. Because they used to be legal a while back?”
“Wasn’t there a performer or actor who had to be taken away in an ambulance after eating them?”

The actor this pair speak of was Hideaki Ito, who is still popular today. In 2002, Ito apparently ate some mushrooms that put him into a state of total derangement and the actor ended up running into a convenience store near his home where he shouted at the clerk, telling them that he was in pain and asking them to call an ambulance. Ito’s incident was picked up the mass media, which eventually resulted in magic mushrooms being outlawed in Japan. According to one explanation, until that time, they weren’t explicitly outlawed, though it was apparently only legal to own them, not ingest them. Of course, a wide variety of mushrooms grow naturally in Japan, so the effectiveness of outlawing them may be questionable.

Like many countries, Japan also has a wide variety of anti-drug posters, some of which are bit more…unusual than others. Here a few of the more attention-grabbing ones we’ve seen on Twitter.

▼ “Drugs = suicide”

▼ Wait, wouldn’t “NO! DRUG” mean “Stop! Please give me drugs?”

▼ Some couldn’t help seeing this Attack on Titan cover as an anti-drug poster.

And then there are these guys. First, there’s Dame. Zettai.-kun. And then there’s Dame. Zettai. Professor. And last, there’s….well, no one seems to know who that Dame. Zettai. girl is. Maybe she’s the Dame. Zettai. Princess?

Of course, they never want to talk about the black sheep of the family: Dame. Zettai.-kun’s older brother, whose name, we assume, is Gimme Druuuuuugs-san.

toomanydrugsTwitter (@muratama214)

We may be mistaken, but something tells us the last one isn’t an official illustration. Maybe he’s just there to serve as a cautionary tale? Either way, we’re pretty sure we know who gave the kid who drew the poster at the top the LSD, MDMA, mushrooms, marijuana, and everything else in that horror show.

Sources: AlfalfalfaHayabusa 2channel, Topicks
Images: Hayabusa 2channel