Cannabis Arrived in the Post and You Were Arrested: Import Offences Under Narcotics Act Article 65, Intent, and Your Right to Stay

You took delivery of a parcel from abroad and were immediately surrounded by investigators. You signed for an international courier package and a warrant was produced on the spot. Cases that begin this way are not unusual among the foreign nationals who come to us. Even if you believed you were simply collecting a parcel for a friend, the law may treat the matter as importation of narcotics, a serious offence, and the investigation will proceed on that footing. This article sets out the statutory penalties for importation, the outline of the investigative technique known as controlled delivery, and how the recipient's awareness becomes the central issue, together with the consequences for your status of residence (在留資格).

Key points

• Import, export and manufacture of cannabis carry imprisonment for not less than 1 year and not more than 10 years under article 65(1)(i) of the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act.
• Where there was a profit-making purpose (営利目的), the penalty is imprisonment for a determinate term of not less than 1 year, and depending on the circumstances that sentence together with a fine of up to 5 million yen.
• National Police Agency figures for 2025 record 192 arrests for smuggling among cannabis offences.
• Whether the recipient was aware of the contents, that is, whether there was intent (故意), can be the decisive point in the case.
• A conviction creates a ground for deportation (退去強制) under article 24, item 4, sub-item (chi) of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (入管法24条4号チ), so the work done before charges are filed is critical.

If drugs arrive in a parcel addressed to me, what offence am I charged with?

Where drugs are brought into Japan from abroad, the case is often framed as importation rather than possession. For cannabis, import, export and manufacture carry imprisonment for not less than 1 year and not more than 10 years under article 65(1)(i) of the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act. Where there was a profit-making purpose, the penalty is imprisonment for a determinate term of not less than 1 year, and depending on the circumstances that sentence together with a fine of up to 5 million yen.

For narcotics other than cannabis, such as cocaine or MDMA, import, export and manufacture likewise carry imprisonment for 1 to 10 years under article 65(1) of the same Act, and with a profit-making purpose, imprisonment for a determinate term of not less than 1 year together with a fine of up to 5 million yen. In each case the floor of 1 year is what sets these offences apart from simple possession.

For stimulants the position is heavier still: import, export and manufacture carry imprisonment for a determinate term of not less than 1 year under article 41(1) of the Stimulants Control Act, and the profit-making form under article 41(2) carries life imprisonment or imprisonment for not less than 3 years.

Why are people arrested at the very moment they take delivery?

Where a customs inspection or similar check reveals drugs in an international mail item or courier package, the authorities do not always seize the item and stop there. They may allow the parcel to continue through the distribution chain, identify the person who takes delivery, and make an arrest at that point. This is what is known as controlled delivery.

Where that technique has been used, the moment of delivery has been observed and recorded by the investigating authorities. The bare external fact that you received the parcel is therefore usually documented in a way that is hard to dispute.

The real issue accordingly shifts away from whether you took delivery and towards what, and how much, you knew about the contents. Investigators record your words and behaviour immediately after delivery in fine detail, and seek to establish whether you opened the parcel, precisely because they are looking for support on the question of awareness.

Does saying "I was just asked to collect it" work as a defence?

To take the conclusion first: an account of that kind is not dismissed out of hand. An offence requires intent, and without awareness that the contents were drugs, the intent required for an importation offence is absent. In practice the circumstances vary widely, from people who merely lent their home address at someone's request to students who accepted a parcel addressed to a housemate at their dormitory.

For an account of no awareness to be accepted, however, it has to be consistent with the case as a whole. The relationship with the person who made the request, how the request came about, whether payment was promised and whether its amount was proportionate, the sender and description on the parcel, and what you were told to do with it after collection: each of these becomes a subject of examination. Whether the conduct is assessed as involving what is called conditional intent, that is, accepting the possibility that the contents might be unlawful and taking delivery anyway, is also frequently at issue.

Your account during questioning therefore needs to be presented as a consistent chronological narrative, rather than in fragments as things come back to you. Where the exchange passes through an interpreter, delicate expressions about awareness can acquire a much stronger meaning in the Japanese written statement, so every word deserves care.

• Who asked you, and how the request came about
• Whether payment was promised, and if so whether the amount matched the work involved
• What you were told about the sender, the description of the contents, and the weight
• What instructions you were given about what to do after taking delivery
• Whether you had taken delivery of similar parcels before

How often does this happen?

According to the National Police Agency's report on the organised crime situation in 2025 (final figures), arrests for cannabis offences in 2025 broken down by conduct were 5,354 for possession, 700 for administration, 126 for cultivation, 180 for transfer and 192 for smuggling. Smuggling is not the largest category by number, but the statutory penalties are heavy and custody tends to be prolonged.

These are overall figures and cannot tell you the outlook for an individual case. They do show, however, that this pattern is not unusual and that the investigating authorities have established methods for dealing with it.

What effect does this have on your status of residence?

A conviction gives rise to a ground for deportation under article 24, item 4, sub-item (chi) of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. That provision simply lists persons convicted of violating the named laws, beginning with the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act, and asks nothing about the type or weight of the sentence. A fully suspended sentence is treated the same way.

Because importation carries a floor of 1 year, a term to be served is more likely than in simple possession cases to exceed 1 year. The proviso to article 50(1) imposes a heightened requirement for persons sentenced to life imprisonment or to imprisonment exceeding 1 year: permission may be granted only where it is found that there are special circumstances such that refusing permission would be contrary to humanitarian consideration. Sentence length is thus not only a sentencing question but also one that shapes the framework in which special permission to stay (在留特別許可) is assessed.

Beyond that, after deportation a ground for denial of landing (上陸拒否) under article 5(1)(v) remains. The denial of landing based on a deportation record under article 5(1)(ix) carries fixed periods of 1 year, 5 years and 10 years, but item (v) has no such time limit.

The exit to aim for, and how we work

For a foreign client, the exit that fully protects the right to stay is a decision not to prosecute (不起訴処分) before charges are filed. Because sub-item (chi) requires a "conviction", obtaining a suspended sentence at trial cannot prevent the ground for deportation from arising. Where a defence is built without regard to this, the result can be a favourable criminal outcome and the loss of the right to stay.

In delivery cases, the existence of intent is squarely in issue, so an exit through non-prosecution for insufficient suspicion is genuinely in view. Achieving it requires gathering, within the limited window of the detention period, material such as communication records substantiating how the request came about, travel history, and evidence of employment and daily life, and presenting it in a form that reaches the prosecutor's decision on disposition.

Attorney Daisuke Matsumura personally handles every stage, from the first visit at the detention facility through to the close of trial. For Chinese we have a dedicated interpreter on staff who is experienced in cases involving foreign nationals; separate from the interpreter appointed by the investigating authorities, this interpreter works for the client and is available throughout the criminal process. For languages other than Chinese, we arrange an interpreter according to the needs of the case. Residence matters after the criminal case ends are handled together with an affiliated administrative scrivener, so that everything is dealt with in one place.

Relevant case results

The three matters below, involving cases where the act of taking delivery or the client's state of mind was in issue and cases concerning residence, are those we are able to describe publicly. Past results reflect the particular circumstances of those cases and are not a guarantee of a similar outcome.

• In a matter where a woman in her twenties was accused of withdrawing money as part of an organised fraud scheme, we argued the subjective circumstances as a whole and obtained a decision not to prosecute. It has something in common with delivery cases, in that the question was how far she understood the nature of what she had been handed.
• In litigation to assist a woman wrongly accused of facilitating illegal employment and facing deportation, we are pursuing a case that reconsiders the established practice under which neither intent nor negligence is required for grounds for deportation; in that same matter we obtained special permission to stay in a case where the offence of facilitating illegal employment had been found, which had no precedent.
• We have experience in international criminal cases, cases tried before lay judges, and serious cases reported worldwide.

Isolate the single act of taking delivery of a parcel and every such case looks identical from the outside. Yet how it came about, what was asked, whether there was payment, and the situation the recipient was in differ entirely from one case to the next. Putting those differences into words and into the record matters in the criminal process and in the immigration process that may follow. Even once questioning has begun, there is still work that can be done. This article is a general explanation; for your own case, consult a lawyer directly. Past results reflect the particular circumstances of those cases and are not a guarantee of a similar outcome.

This article reflects the law as at August 2026.

About the author

Daisuke Matsumura, Attorney at Law
Dai-Ichi Tokyo Bar Association (registration no. 59077, admitted 2019)
Funado International Law Office (Fuse Building Main Wing 3F, 3-4-10 Takada, Toshima-ku, Tokyo)
Practice focused on criminal defence for foreign nationals and immigration proceedings.
Results include an acquittal in a Stimulants Control Act case (possession for the purpose of profit), non-prosecution in organised fraud cases, and special permission to stay in cases regarded as difficult.

Funado International Law Office
Website: https://matsumura-lawoffice.jp/
WeChat ID: matsumura1119