Regarding the Aug. 10 article "Sakai blames her husband": Japan seems to have the same puritanical views about drug use that Americans have about sex. The Noriko Sakai scandal is the latest evidence of this.
Are illicit drugs dangerous? They certainly can be. Yet, drug use didn't prevent Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Barrack Obama from becoming president of the United States. Clinton claimed not to have inhaled; Bush didn't like to talk about his previous use; while Obama was explicit about drug use in his book "The Audacity of Hope".
As with the gender-equality issue, Japan seems to be about 50 years behind America when it comes to the "evil of drugs."
david williams
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