The United States, Japan, and the International Drug Trade: Troubled Partnership

Abstract

Despite the efforts of the United States to enlist the support of other advanced industrial countries in the war against drugs of abuse and addiction, scholars appear to have paid scant attention to the political dynamics shaping relations between the U.S. and Japan on this issue.1 Japan's importance to the U.S. drug war has traditionally been in the country's proximity to the Southeast Asian heroin trade, has increased with the growing role played by Japanese banks in international financial transactions, and has become even more important since the September 1989 declarations by President Bush and Prime Minister Kaifu on global partnership in the war against drugs. Yet, Japanese participation in the drug war coordinated by the United States is paradoxical. In contrast to the drug problems faced by the U.S. and the European Community (EC), Japan has had only limited problems with heroin and cocaine. Instead, the Japanese war on drugs has focused primarily on stimulant drugs-amphetamines and methamphetamines-