City of sin!

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Police track heroin ring after 3 foreigners, Japanese die in Roppongi

Sunday, June 13, 2004 at 07:33 JST
TOKYO — Heroin components have been detected in the bodies of three foreign nationals and a Japanese who died in March and April in Tokyo, police officials said Saturday, adding they suspect a heroin trafficking ring is active in Roppongi.

Seven other people, including Americans and Japanese, were hospitalized from March to May for symptoms believed to be due to drug intake, the police said.

Heroin components were found in a 21-year-old female Brazilian dancer who died at a hospital after collapsing in the Roppongi area in March, and the three others — a 46-year-old Canadian man, a 33-year-old American man and a 30-year-old Japanese woman — died in April, they said.

Cocaine components were also detected in the body of the Canadian man, they said.

The police have arrested several of the people who were hospitalized on suspicion of drug control law violation and are trying to track down trafficking routes. (Kyodo News)

misery...
Roppongi is a place people die like this?

Has Roppongi changed in recent years at all?

Well I certainly know the cocaine trade there is alive and kicking. Tokyo Coke-e-o

Tell us more please? Is it open and well known? What do those lovely policemen do about it?

I've never ever seen drugs in Japan.

The police don't do much at all. There are certain bars that have been selling it for so long and rather blatantly that there must be some yakuza/gang/police deal going on. That's all I'm going to say on the matter :p

You should say more. Which places? Not that I want any, just want to look.

yeah, i reckon you should say more too. but unlike tha big O, i want some. :p
feel free to private me

Have I been blind when I'm there? Don't know the "right" people? How come I never seen anything like this going on?

I was just in Roppongi. Was at a 24 hour club. And after partying all night into the afternoon I needed a little extra to keep going. Asked around at the bar but couldn't get anybody to tell me anything.

Oh well though. Wallet was empty. Couldn't have even paid. So I settled for drinking somebodies Red Bull and left.

I've never seen anything either.

Why do you want to take drug? Isn't it bad and addiction? I don't understand it well.

Akibun: not until someone dies.

Veronica, Toq etc: What do you mean you cant see it or find any??!! Coke is the very fabric of society, it is every where.

Don't be ridiculous.
Or do you mean the drink?

I must also not be part of the fabric of society. " title="" src="graemlins/cry.gif" />

Do you know any good places for cheese in Roppongi?

Found this at Mainichi

Drug dealers grab partying foreigners by the speedballs

Tokyo's Roppongi district is best known as the capital's party paradise, attracting large numbers of well-heeled revelers, especially foreigners. But Roppongi has been rocked in recent months by four sudden fatalities, three of non-Japanese, and another seven people slipping into a coma after imbibing in drugs, according to Weekly Playboy (7/6).
Roppongi has often been whispered as an underground drug haven, but use has hardly been widespread considering a common anathema for chemical-induced pleasure that sees many Japanese regard even marijuana as a hard drug.

Roppongi's recent casualties, therefore, have come as an even greater shock to a land where drug use remains limited, especially compared to the West.

"What the casualties have taken could've been speedballs, a mix of cocaine and heroin. Speedballs apparently give an awesome feeling that can't be obtained with either heroin or cocaine alone, with some users describing its effects as being like living in a kaleidoscope," Takeshi Kitashiba of the Japan Social Pathology Research Center tells Weekly Playboy.

When downers like heroin and uppers like cocaine are mixed in a speedball, the brain effectively sends a message to the heart to slow down and speed up simultaneously. When the heart can't cope with the messages it receives, it effectively freezes, just like an overloaded computer.

An anesthetic called ketamin has been suggested as an alternative culprit in the Roppongi drug deaths.

"Ketamin is usually called K or Special K. You get an absolutely wicked high if you mix this with cocaine or heroin," a Roppongi nightclub employee familiar with the area's drug scene says. "But, if you don't get the right mix, that's pretty much the end of you."

Akio Kuroki, a former Metropolitan Police Department patrol cop and now a journalist is not surprised to see hard drugs on the streets of Tokyo's famous party town.

"Dealers are simply coming up with powerful new concoctions for users who're tired of the same old stuff and need a new kick," Kuroki tells Weekly Playboy. "But, because all the recent casualties have occurred in or around Roppongi, investigators looking into the case suspect the trafficking may still only be small scale for the moment."

While foreigners are largely the casualties of the wider drug use, it's also non-Japanese who are being blamed for bringing the narcotics into the country in the first place.

"Those smuggling heroin into Japan are separate syndicates, one made up of Chinese with Malaysian passports, and the other Nigerians with Western citizenship. Recently, there's also been the Canadian route, which is a Chinese triad that shifted to Canada before Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule in 1997, and deals largely in ecstasy and speed," the nightclub employee up on Roppongi's drug scene says.

Hirokatsu Azuma, a journalist familiar with foreign organized crime operations in Japan, says there're plenty more new drugs expected to hit Japan's underground markets.

"There's a new type of speed called erimim being smuggled in from Southeast Asia," Azuma tells Weekly Playboy. "I don't know a great deal about it, but if you slip it into a drink, you can't feel anything and soon nod off. I've heard it's already been used as a rape drug in Thailand."

Moral of the story is don't do it or a least be confident about the source and quality of the product. Sounds like these people probably thought they were snorting a nice big line of coke but ended up getting something else. A friend of mine thought he was doing a line of coke once but it was actually smack. His nose started bleeding and he was messed up for days. I think he got off pretty lucky with just that.

I've never enjoyed the sophisticated feeling of having somebody swipe your drink off the bar. I once went to the only 'happening' bar in Matsuyama and what happened was that my half a beer disappeared while I was talking to some loud-mouthed people. It made me feel young again (not a very good feeling).

Be careful out there kiddies!