Cannabis Literature in East Asia During the 1940s

Context: what 'cannabis literature' meant in 1940s East Asia

In 1940s East Asia, the word usually translated today as 'cannabis' — 大麻 (J. taima, C. dàmá, K. daema) — almost always meant industrial and medicinal hemp, not a recreational drug Strong evidence. Japan was at war through 1945 and under Allied occupation afterward; China was fighting the Second Sino-Japanese War and then a civil war; Korea was a Japanese colony until 1945. Publishing was constrained by paper rationing, censorship, and military priorities ^[1]. The literature that survives is dominated by agricultural bulletins, pharmacopoeia, and military supply documents rather than literary or cultural writing about cannabis as an intoxicant.

Japan: hemp as a strategic crop

Japanese agricultural and military publications of the early 1940s treated taima (hemp) as a strategic fiber for ropes, uniforms, parachute cords, and Shinto ritual textiles Strong evidence^[2]. Tochigi Prefecture, long a hemp-producing region, continued to supply the military, and prefectural agricultural extension materials from the period describe cultivation techniques in detail ^[2].

Medicinal uses appeared in pharmacy texts derived from earlier Sino-Japanese kanpō (traditional medicine) traditions, where cannabis seed (mashinin, 麻子仁) was listed as a mild laxative — a use inherited from the Chinese Shennong Bencao Jing tradition rather than a 1940s innovation ^[3].

The decisive legal turning point came after the war. Under the Allied occupation (SCAP), Japan enacted the **Cannabis Control Act (大麻取締法, Taima Torishimari Hō)** in July 1948, which reframed cannabis from an ordinary fiber crop into a controlled substance, while carving out licenses for traditional hemp farmers Strong evidence^[4]. The law itself is the most consequential 'cannabis text' produced in Japan in that decade.

Claims sometimes seen online that 1940s Japan had a flourishing recreational cannabis literature are not supported by the surviving record No data. The pre-1948 absence of prohibition does not imply the presence of a drug culture; it simply reflects that hemp was treated as agriculture.

China: pharmacopoeia, agriculture, and wartime disruption

Chinese writing on cannabis in the 1940s was overwhelmingly continuous with the much older bencao (materia medica) tradition. Cannabis seed (huoma ren, 火麻仁) and, less commonly, the flowering tops (máhuā, 麻花) appeared in reprints and compendia of traditional medicine, citing classical sources like the Bencao Gangmu of Li Shizhen (1596) ^[3][5].

Agricultural texts from the Republican period and from the Japanese-occupied northeast (Manchukuo) discussed hemp fiber production for textiles and military use Weak / limited^[6]. New original literary or scientific writing specifically about cannabis as a psychoactive drug is essentially absent from the Chinese record of this decade; the war made sustained academic publishing extremely difficult ^[1].

A common modern myth is that traditional Chinese medicine of this period prescribed cannabis flower for a wide range of ailments. In practice, by the 20th century huoma ren (seed) was by far the dominant cannabis preparation in bencao texts, used mainly for constipation, with flower and leaf preparations much rarer Strong evidence^[3].

Korea: colonial agriculture and post-liberation silence

Korea under Japanese rule (until August 1945) produced hemp (sam, 삼; or daema, 대마) primarily for textiles, especially the traditional sambe hemp cloth used in mourning garments and summer clothing Strong evidence^[7]. Japanese colonial agricultural reports document hemp cultivation in provinces such as Andong and Boseong ^[7].

After liberation in 1945, Korea entered a period of political upheaval leading to the Korean War (1950–53). There is little dedicated Korean-language cannabis literature from the late 1940s beyond agricultural and ethnographic references. Korea would not pass a dedicated cannabis control law until the Cannabis Control Act of 1976, well outside this period Strong evidence^[8].

Myths and misreadings

Several claims circulate in English-language cannabis writing about this era that don't hold up:

• 'Japanese kamikaze pilots used cannabis.' There is no credible primary-source evidence for this No data. Documented stimulants given to Japanese pilots were methamphetamine-class compounds (e.g., Philopon), not cannabis ^[9].
• 'Cannabis was a major recreational drug in 1940s East Asia.' The dominant illicit drugs of concern in wartime East Asia were opium and methamphetamine, not cannabis Strong evidence^[9].
• 'Traditional East Asian medicine of the 1940s widely prescribed THC-rich cannabis flower.' The mainstream kanpō/bencao use was the seed, which contains negligible THC Strong evidence^[3].

The broader pattern: 1940s East Asian cannabis literature is a story of fiber, ritual textile, and pharmacopoeia continuity — interrupted by war and then reshaped, in Japan's case, by occupation-era prohibition.

What survives and where to look

Researchers interested in primary sources can consult: the National Diet Library of Japan for prefectural agricultural bulletins and the original 1948 Taima Torishimari Hō text ^[4]; reprints of the Bencao Gangmu and Republican-era Chinese materia medica compendia ^[5]; and Japanese colonial government statistical yearbooks for Korea (Chōsen Sōtokufu Tōkei Nenpō) for hemp acreage data ^[7]. English-language secondary scholarship on East Asian cannabis history is still thin; the most reliable overviews are in works on the broader history of drugs in modern Asia ^[1][9].

Sources

How this page was made