Cannabis Legalisation: US, Netherlands and Japan Compared

The US is moving toward legalisation, the Netherlands invented tolerant drug policy — and yet local sources show both countries questioning the same things Japan never questions at all

June 2026 · Researched via local American, Dutch and Japanese internet sources using LikeLoc · 28 US sources · 26 Dutch sources · 27 Japanese sources

Live searches: United States · Netherlands · Japan

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The international headline on cannabis is familiar: legalisation is spreading, public support is growing, prohibition is fading. From Canada to Germany to a patchwork of US states, the direction of travel seems clear.

So I searched the same question — "public attitudes toward drug legalisation and recreational cannabis" — through local American sources in English, local Dutch sources in Dutch, and local Japanese sources in Japanese. What came back wasn't a single story with three regional footnotes. It was three entirely different conversations happening at three entirely different speeds.

The US is in a wave of optimism. The Netherlands is in a quiet crisis of coherence. Japan isn't having the conversation at all.

Here's what local sources in each country actually sound like.

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A supermajority that arrived quietly

The US numbers are striking. As of early 2026, about 88% of US adults believe marijuana should be legal for either medical or adult use — with only 11% opposing any form of legalisation. That is a supermajority that would be difficult to assemble for almost any other question in American politics.

Gallup tracking shows the arc: 31% of Americans supported legalisation in 2000. By late 2025 that figure stood at 64% for recreational use alone. Among Democrats, 73% are in favour; among Republicans, 45% — and support rises to 62% among Republicans aged 18–29. The generational gradient is consistent across every poll: younger Americans support legalisation at rates that suggest the political floor under prohibition is continuing to erode.

88% of US adults support some form of legal marijuana — a supermajority that would be difficult to assemble on almost any other policy question.

Local sources frame legalisation's appeal in practical terms. The Pew Research Center finds that 52% of adults believe legalising recreational cannabis benefits local economies; 42% say it makes the criminal justice system fairer. The PRRI analysis of shifting perspectives notes that perceptions of cannabis as risky have declined, with many Americans now viewing it similarly to alcohol. NORML polling found overwhelming public support consistently across demographics.

The picture isn't frictionless. States that legalised recreational use early have seen usage increases in some demographics — particularly older adults and women — and public health debates persist. The federal scheduling landscape remains in flux, with the Justice Department taking steps toward reclassification even as legal complexity continues. And the national map is still a patchwork: some states fully legalised, others medical-only, a few with outright bans still in place.

But the direction of American public opinion is unambiguous. As a Pew headline put it: "A majority of Americans support legalising marijuana use." That sentence would have been impossible to write at the turn of the century.

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The inventors of drug tolerance are questioning their own invention

The Netherlands has the most recognisable cannabis brand of any country in the world. Amsterdamse coffeeshops, tolerance policy, hash in a paper bag — the Dutch model has been cited for decades as proof that decriminalisation and harm reduction can coexist. And yet local Dutch sources in 2026 describe a policy in genuine tension with itself.

About 60% of the Dutch public support full legalisation of cannabis. But the existing tolerance policy — where coffee shops can sell cannabis freely, yet the supply chain for what they sell remains technically illegal — is increasingly held up as an incoherent halfway house. Experiments are now underway in Tilburg and Breda to test whether a fully regulated, legal supply market is feasible. Germany's legalisation and Canada's model have added pressure: Dutch local sources ask whether the Netherlands risks being overtaken by the countries it inspired.

Dutch coffee shops can legally sell cannabis — but the production and supply chain feeding them remains illegal. Local sources are increasingly calling this arrangement unsustainable.

The generational divide is sharp. Sixty-five percent of Dutch 18–24-year-olds find cannabis use acceptable; among those aged 65 and over, that figure falls to 27%. The political conversation reflects this fracture. Amsterdam's mayor Femke Halsema advocates a health-oriented approach that extends harm-reduction thinking even to harder drugs. Rotterdam's mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb — in a piece on BNNVARA's Joop platform — criticises the "lax" attitude toward recreational drug use in middle-class circles, pointing to negative consequences in poorer neighbourhoods.

The DutchNews.nl headline "60% of the Dutch back full legalisation of marijuana" sits alongside NRC commentary questioning whether liberal drug attitudes have created their own blind spots. The NL Times reported that the government's cannabis experiment is pressing ahead "despite strong opposition." This isn't a country that has resolved its drug-policy debate. It is a country that invented a particular answer forty years ago and is now not sure whether that answer still works.

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A society in which legalisation is not a policy debate but a foreign news story

Japanese local sources on cannabis barely discuss public opinion on legalisation. They discuss prevention.

The Cannabis Control Act was revised in December 2023 — moving cannabis possession and use under the Narcotics and Psychotropic Control Act and stiffening penalties significantly. Government communications are clear: "Possession, transfer, use and cultivation of cannabis are prohibited." The national campaign is named "No. Absolutely Not." (ダメ。ゼッタイ。) — a slogan deployed across government websites, school materials and local authority outreach.

The problem driving that campaign is specific: cannabis use is rising among young people. About 80% of those arrested for cannabis offences are in their teens or twenties. Local authorities, the Ministry of Health and the Osaka Prefectural Government point to social media as the vector — misinformation spreading the idea that "natural substances are safe," normalising cannabis as something harmless. The government's response is to intensify education, particularly targeting parents.

In Japan, about 80% of those arrested for cannabis offences are in their teens or twenties — and the government's response is to intensify prevention campaigns, not to debate legalisation.

What makes Japan's local conversation distinctively different is not the policy itself — prohibition is common — but the texture of the local discourse. Yahoo! Japan's expert commentary notes that international legalisation developments go largely unreported in Japanese media. J-GLOBAL academic literature tracks public opinion on legal arguments but frames it as a foreign-country question. A Ministry of Justice research report and a Ministry of Health white paper focus entirely on enforcement and rehabilitation — not on the public-opinion landscape that, in the US and Netherlands, drives the political debate.

International developments are acknowledged — Canada's legalisation, US state-level moves, Germany's recent legalisation — but only as news from abroad. The J-GLOBAL literature notes that "careful discussion is required" if legalisation were ever to come onto Japan's agenda. There is no indication from local sources that such a discussion is imminent.

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What the contrast reveals

The three countries represent three different stages of a debate — but only two of them are actually having it.

The US is in late-stage renegotiation: a country that built its drug-war architecture over decades and is now dismantling it state by state, poll point by poll point. The 88% figure for any-form-of-legalisation isn't a fringe position; it's the national default. The remaining argument is about federalism, public health details, and regulatory structure — not about whether.

The Netherlands is in a different kind of crisis: a country that pioneered liberal drug policy and now finds that the halfway version it landed on decades ago doesn't satisfy either the liberals who want full legalisation or the conservatives who want stricter enforcement. The ongoing tolerance experiment is a bid to resolve this — to build a legal production chain that the tolerance policy always lacked.

Japan isn't at either stage. Its local internet isn't debating the policy question because, from a Japanese public-opinion perspective, there isn't one to debate. The conversation is about prevention of a public health problem among young people, not about liberalisation. International legalisation is watched as a foreign development — interesting, perhaps, but not relevant to Japan's own trajectory.

All three countries agree that cannabis is becoming more salient as a topic. What that salience means, and what to do with it, depends almost entirely on which country's local sources you're reading.

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Selected sources

United States:

• Key facts about Americans and marijuana | Pew Research Center — "Key facts about Americans and marijuana" (Pew Research data on US public support, demographics, and trend over time)
• Marijuana Surveys and Polls - NORML — "Marijuana Surveys and Polls" (NORML aggregation of US polling showing supermajority support)
• Shifting Perspectives: Public Opinion on Cannabis and Psychedelics - PRRI — "Shifting Perspectives" (PRRI analysis of changing risk perceptions and political divide)
• Cannabis Policy in 2026—Setbacks, Rollbacks, and Roadblocks — "Cannabis Policy in 2026" (State-by-state policy landscape as of 2026)

Netherlands:

• Aboutaleb hekelt 'lakse' houding ten aanzien van recreatief drugsgebruik middenklasse - Joop - BNNVARA — "Aboutaleb criticises 'lax' attitude toward recreational drug use in the middle class" (Rotterdam mayor's critique on BNNVARA's political platform Joop)
• 60% of the Dutch back full legalisation of marijuana - DutchNews.nl — "60% of the Dutch back full legalisation of marijuana" (English-language Dutch news, citing national poll)
• Dutch government presses ahead with cannabis experiment despite strong opposition | NL Times — "Dutch government presses ahead with cannabis experiment despite strong opposition" (Coverage of the regulated supply pilot in Tilburg and Breda)
• Opinie | Zo leuk zijn drugs niet. Toch moet het gaan over legalisering - NRC — "Opinion: Drugs aren't so great. Yet we must talk about legalisation" (NRC commentary examining the tension within Dutch liberal drug policy)

Japan:

• 大麻の所持・譲渡、使用、栽培は禁止！法改正の内容も紹介します | 政府広報オンライン — "Possession, transfer, use and cultivation of cannabis are prohibited — here's what the legal revision means" (Official Japanese Government Online PR explaining the 2023 Cannabis Control Act revision)
• 「うちの子は大丈夫」が危ない？SNS時代の大麻リスクから子どもを守るために／大阪府ホームページ — "'My kid is fine' is dangerous — how to protect children from cannabis risks in the social media age" (Osaka Prefectural Government public awareness page targeting parents)
• 米国の大麻解禁論、日本のメディアが報道しないこと（猪瀬聖） - エキスパート - Yahoo!ニュース — "What Japanese media doesn't report about America's cannabis debate" (Yahoo! Japan expert commentary on the gap between international and domestic coverage)
• 大麻取締法改正を考える（園田寿） – Web日本評論 — "Considering the revision of the Cannabis Control Act" (Legal-academic analysis of Japan's 2023 reform in Japan Review Online)