A National Police Agency report made available Thursday showed police departments across the country handled 3,832 cannabis-related cases involving 2,778 offenders last year, both all-time highs since the NPA began tracking records in 1956.
The figure for total cases marked a 16.8 percent increase from the previous year, with the number of offenders rising 22.3 percent. There were 2,374 first-timers, accounting for 85.5 percent of the total offenders and posting a 20.6 percent year-on-year increase.
As for breakdowns in age groups, the combined number of offenders in their teens and 20s went up to 1,736, or 62.5 percent of the total and a 10.6 percent rise. Among them were 49 high school and two junior high school students.
The figures and numbers included highly publicized cases, most notably the arrest of a Russian professional sumo wrestler, Wakanoho, who was caught in Tokyo in August for marijuana possession and kicked out of the Japanese national sport.
Actor Taishu Kase was then apprehended in another high-profile case while a number of arrests of college and university students were reported throughout the year for possessing, smoking, growing or smuggling cannabis or marijuana.
The agency says a main factor in the increase appears to be numerous Internet websites that provide information officials say helps facilitate illegal acts related to marijuana, including how to grow it, indoors or outdoors, and produce it.
Acquiring seeds of the plant over the Internet is relatively easy and seed trades are not illegal under current Japanese laws, making it possible for seed sellers to ward off a police search as long as they post a description noting that growing cannabis is illegal.
Authorities have belatedly launched countermeasures against such deals and their efforts led to the arrest last year of a group who had engaged in Internet seed sales and delivery on charges of helping to grow cannabis.
"There has obviously been an increasing number of occasions in which people get cannabis seeds or learn how to grow it," an NPA official said. "And there's misunderstanding among them about the toxicity (of cannabis and marijuana). Probably that's part of the reason they tried to get into it very easily."
The NPA report also said there were 15,840 cases associated with stimulant drugs in 2008, down 6.4 percent from the previous year, with 11,041 offenders involved, down 8.1 percent. Organized crimes comprised the majority of the cases.
In other types of crimes, 42 gunshot incidents were reported in which 10 people were killed, down from 65 and 21, respectively.
