How Do Illegal Drugs Get Into Japan?

Someone was searching this on the website.. If you know please provide them answers.

Where they shopping?

Let me start off my saying if your thinking of doing it, DON"T. When you do things like that you make the whole community look bad. You can even bring punishment down on everybody! I'm sure many of you dont recall the "Great lock down" of 2008 here on Okinawa but I do. You don't want something like that either. Just imagine everyone living out in town having to get permmision to pay your electric bill ect at family mart because no one is allowed to shop off base. In addition to that no one is allowed to take a walk off base! You may only drive off base to either go to your privite home or another base. It was bad. I went through starbucks withdraw. And it lasted for months.

Ok... Adam...

If you've got a script that automatically turns a search request into a post, I suggest you stop it immediately.

You've got enough issues with the base's perception of JB without questions like this popping up.

V/r Me

PS:  We don't need to be advertising the ways it gets in here, or the ways that we find/locate it.  Not even speculation.

Besides making the base look bad, it's a one way ticket to deportation and probably prison time --in the Japanese system. Not fun. You don't have the rights, phone calls and all that babying stuff like in the States. Why would anyone want to even TRY?

You will not get a simple ticket like you would in some States for a bag of weed, or whatever. It's a BIG deal here.

I was going to ask if there was a script too... That sort of question doesn't really belong on here.

For some of the other questions that have come up...If someone can't be bothered to create an account and ask their question then they must not need an answer so badly.  If they didn't make an account, do you really think they'll come back looking to see if something magically appeared?  I was out of town for a few days and it's been difficult to weed through the real discussion threads and the ones that are "Someone was searching for this..." posts.

These posts are very important for several reasons. 1) Google Indexing 2) Because there are actual people looking for this type of information. Maybe not as a resource to know, but if you search the exact title in google, you will see there are several topics already on the subject.

Loki, I see your point.
Bottom line is, people looking for information should be able to find anything and everything they need here about Japan.

Google now has over 20,000 indexed pages on JB. This didnt happen overnight. It happens, because all the topics and search criteria that people look for get posted on the website, so the next time they search in google, they hopefully can find an answer for something one has provided.

The posts recently about the dealers there is a reason behind those, which I will explain later.

One last thing, you would BE SURPRISED if you got to see all the stuff people try to search for. Its crazy.. I could only imagine, the type of things google sees coming in. Not everything that gets searched for gets posted. Its filtered, and stuff that we feel is appropriate gets posted. Sometimes things may be borderline, but INFORMATION is INFORMATION.

This topic was never intended to provide someone a step by step guide. It was to provide a deterrent.

We could go on and on about all the idiots in the past.. PRINGLES Cans full of weed coming back from Thailand, people getting stopped with drugs in the airport, dogs sniffing things on personnel returning, etc..

I agree its stupid, and those that are stupid enough to be involved with anything drug related should be in Jail.

I partially have to disagree with you on this one Loki. I'm not not of the opinion that being informed about a subject somehow encourages it. It's kind of like saying that taking sex ed increases the likelihood of teen pregnancy, or owning a firearm increases the odds of bank robbery.

Security through obscurity never works.

The more people who know how the bad guys operate, the more people able to keep an eye out for exactly that tactic/pattern of behavior/etc and report or prevent it.

Or think of it this way - if someone out there has a way to get something smuggled in that the cops don't already know about, I'd LOVE to see it posted here... for -everyone- to see.

That being said, a bot to autopost searches to the threads is probably something that should be considered very carefully before implementing.

Maybe they come in from Happy Drug.

That being said, a bot to autopost searches to the threads is probably something that should be considered very carefully before implementing.

It is..Everything is reviewed first before anything is auto-posted. Except for the news feeds. That is all automatic..

I'll weigh in pretty much in agreement with Loki. I had planned to post a similar concern but hadn't gotten around to it yet.

Adam, I know you have big plans for this site, and of course it's yours and you can do whatever you like. But the statement: "people should be able to find anything and everything they need here about Japan" is self-defeating. First of all, you will never be able to replicate EVERYTHING about Japan here, nor should you try. What if someone is researching the Meiji dynasty? Current Sumo rankings? These are not harmful, yet many other sites are far more suited to providing authoritative information on such topics. Trying to "do it all" ultimately detracts from your primary goal which is to help people PCSing to Japan.

Secondly, by trying to answer all conceivable questions, the forum becomes so cluttered that the really relevant stuff gets lost in the noise. It will get harder and harder to find items of genuine concern to those living or preparing to live here. Quite truthfully, the site search function is far from perfected, and sorting through older posts for information is getting pretty laborious.

I'm not being a moralist, but questions like where to find prostitutes, how to smuggle drugs, etc. can be found elsewhere. For those who want to be productive residents in our host nation, we have other priorities.

Finally, I think Tirani is right on the mark with: "If someone can't be bothered to create an account and ask their question then they must not need an answer so badly." Personally, when I do a google search, I would get creeped out if I suddenly found out my search became the topic of a public thread. I think people assume a certain sense of confidentiality and don't necessarily expect someone to pick up the ball and run with it.

I, for one, think you need to tighten up on your filtering of these searches and focus on those related to living and working on Japan bases as decent citizens.

1 in 10 rule Tirani.  If someone complains about something assume that there are 9 other people who have the same problem but never bothered to say anything.

Same thing with information searches.  What Adam is trying to do (I believe) is build the basic information store high enough to be self-sustaining.  I can't speak for everyone but I generally won't sign up to a site until it's proven it's value first.

The more information, the more value, the more people who become active members who then start providing more information....

1 in 10 rule. If Tirani, Loki and I are concerned, then there are at least 30 of us. The others haven't weighed in yet.

Let me explain something.

Type in this in google: Sasebo Base Car Dealers

Try Negishi, Yokosuka, Okinawa, Kadena, etc..

When those get typed into google, there are several reasons behind it.

#1 is to become the most indexed website on the web for Japan on Information.

Like Allan said, the more information the better.

I know people may or may not provide answers, but that still doesnt stop the topic from being searched on.

When I say that I have gotten this website from 0 visitors to 75,000+ visitors per month, I am doing something right. Nobody can tell me to think differently, because most of you probably dont have a clue (programming wise) how hard it is to get indexed by google at the rate that this site is getting indexed. Google has bumped the priority level for this JB website to every 9-10 minutes.

As time goes on, it will out pass MAJOR competitor websites, from content alone.

I dont know if most of you have ever heard of this forum in Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2channel
Well they started this website over 10 years ago. It is now the LARGEST Japan forum, receiving nearly 20,000,000 visitors per month.
They got big because people posted ANYTHING and EVERYTHING on that website.

I am not trying to impress anyone. This started as a hobby website, and its slowly becoming a website to recon with.
I can almost guarantee that in the next few years, this website will be the largest source of information for ANYONE moving to Japan. Your never going to make everyone happy.
I do apologize that some of the searches may get annoying after a while, but there is a reason behind them, that are far greater than most people realize.

Indexing on search engines is the key for "ANY" website to succeed.

When you want to know something, where does everyone go?

When people make a title in their posts, within 1 day, if you type that in google it will probably be found.
But what people do is they type things like, "Need Help"
When they should be typing, "Need Help Looking For Appliances in Negishi"

That way, Negishi is indexed, help, and Appliances as major key words.

I am not asking for anyone to change the way they make their titles, I am just trying to point out, that if I dont continue to post things people look for, the website will not stay relevant, and will not continue to grow.

And I disagree with what you said Thai-Guy about the Sumo Rankings etc.. We may not be able to provide them 100% information, but I bet we can lead them with a link to an external website which is what they were after anyway.

Bottom line, INFORMATION is the key.

Everything will never be all roses and rainbows on this website. Some stuff people may agree with, and not agree with.

I can assure you, this website is out of my hands now. It is an official company in the USA, and I am not the owner.
Its owned and operated by "NoJo Solutions".

I just volunteer for them...

So soon, they will be hiring several new individuals that will be working a ton of new additions to help expand the website to the next level.

I agree with most of you about reporting personnel, but we also have to care about the people living in Japan too.
What about them, or the things they are looking for?
I get contacted by people (civilian bankers living in Tokyo) saying they like reading the website and the helpful information. So we must be doing something right.

Sorry this was so long, I just ran on and on with my thoughts for this post.

Posted By ThaiGuy on 14 Apr 2010 08:53 PM
... Personally, when I do a google search, I would get creeped out if I suddenly found out my search became the topic of a public thread. I think people assume a certain sense of confidentiality and don't necessarily expect someone to pick up the ball and run with it. ...

ThaiGuy - they are confidential.  Adam is not co-listing the posting IP address with it.  Your posts are far less confidential and just as public as the ones Adam is putting up.  Yours are linked via your site handle which, with it's password requirement, mostly acts as a personal unique identifier.  No such data is being posted with the search.

Folks - hiding our heads in the sand and pretending that such things don't exist is not helping anyone.  It may be Japan, but it's not Mayberry.  Better to deal with and warn people off with -open- conversation about things like prostitution or drugs or drunk driving penalties or suicide or racially integrated marriages or any of the billions of topics that throughout history someone at somepoint didn't think was 'appropriate' for 'decent folk' and tried to get it censored out of public discourse.

er..

getting off of my soapbox now..

Try it this way - let people discuss what they want to discuss.  There's nothing saying that Adam won't turn over the IP logs to the authorities if warranted and these forums aren't so large that not a single one of us couldn't casually be linked to ourselves in the real world. 

When I say that I have gotten this website from 0 visitors to 75,000+ visitors per month, I am doing something right"

It's not just the hits - but just two months ago when I was desperately looking for any info on what I was getting into, JB was the only thing that came up in google as even a tiny sliver of info. In the past two months the amount of relevant information has grown tremendously.

As for the original question - probably the same way they do anywhere else. Midnight smuggler boats, through customs, home made/grown, etc.

But if you get caught... yer doing hard time in the Japanese penal system. Not club fed as you would stateside.

ok, I'm off my soapbox too. Though, to clarify, there is a difference between confidentiality (private) and anonymity (non-attributable). Anyway, y'all know far more about search engine indexing than I ever will. Out.

Well a dude just got busted in Okinawa trying:

"Police arrested a U.S. servicewoman’s husband in Okinawa Prefecture on Wednesday on suspicion of smuggling marijuana from the United States to Japan using the U.S. military mail system, police said."

This happened on April 7th, are people EVER gonna learn that this just isnt gonna work? all it does is make the base look bad, mess with our mail privileges and delay our mail at customs.

For me, it's (obviously) not about the search engine optimization but the idea that hiding something away somehow makes everyone safer or makes the problem go away.  I can think of several computer examples where that's not the case(security through obscurity), and several social issues too (you don't air your dirty laundry being the most common excuse).

And I just had a thought, and it's supported by Blacklabel here, what if the searcher wasn't some clueless loser trying to find new techniques (like we all, myself included, assumed).

What if (s)he was a criminal justice student trying to get a lead on a pattern of criminal behavior?  OR - what if it was just someone who knows/heard about the clueless Okinawa git and wanted to learn more about how other people got caught.

Maybe... so they don't make the same mistake or maybe for a legitimate reason.   It really does no good to shut down and censor the conversation.  Address it and if someone out there has a problem or is likely being a dumb!@##$, it's not that hard to take action.

But you can only take action if you are aware of what's happening. 

What I meant when I replied earlier, was I don't want to see a bunch of teens (or immature people) start spamming the forums with ridiculous searches "what's the best way to pick a booger" or other dumb things. I thought if it was a bot there's a lot of room for abuse. I guess since it's not a both then my worry was unnecessary. I still personally don't see the need to post the OP question here, I don't think it's the right place, but that's just my opinion. It wasn't really about censoring, it was more about appropriateness.

Also bear in mind, the person seeking this info is NOT the OP. That person was too lazy to sign up for an account, post a question, then come back for an answer. It's more like, they did a search, Adam intercepted their question, and he posted it for them. I'm not advocating censorship; people can post whatever question they want. But that didn't happen in this case.

Guys,

The point is drugs either get INTO Japan, or they don't. If they don't, it is because there was a successful intervention at some point along the way during some attempt.

If they DO get into Japan... we really don't need a discussion about how it happened. All it takes is one idiot to search, find, and try. Just ONE... I can promise you that any I&I is gonna involve how the idea came up. The last thing you need is some jackass saying he got the idea off of JB.com. The odds of that happening are indeed unlikely. But having a search engine index that leads to that exact topic only increases those odds.

Being the "end all" of information sources about Japan needs to involve some responsibility, even if it is at the expense of not showing up on a search engine when someone searches for drugs+Japan. There's a billion other search items that can, and probably will, lead to JB. The goal is extremely honorable. Don't whore out the website for the sake of what is probably only a double handful of hits to the site.

After all... it's called JapanBASES. The emphasis is on BASES in JAPAN. Bases infer MILITARY. Military does not, nor ever, infer drugs.

Address it and if someone out there has a problem or is likely being a dumb!@##$, it's not that hard to take action.

I did have a problem. I took action. And look what happened. You guys think it's about me not wanting to discuss this topic. It's not. Adam... THINK.... Why would I, of all people, be concerned about a thread that discusses how drugs successfully enter Japan?

But... I'll also step down off the soap-box. I've done what I can.

hahahaha wow someone really didnt know this? damn.

right on, Loki. I'm with you, but the soap box is now officially vacant. :-P

I can honestly say as a new person, I'm not impressed with this post. That's probably not a very prudent thing for me to say with so few posts in. I can, however, tell you I was impressed with the website. I'm just not impressed with the need to post absolutely everything. I can emphasize with the challenges of coming up in a google search successfully, but in a weird way it contradicts something I saw posted previously in the past few days. How is this supposed to be a site families, including teens, can come to and a place for this kind of stuff as well. I'm sure it is a delicate balance though between quantity and quality.

Holy thread necromancy, Batman!