In this study, we aim to clarify the impact of drug abuse prevention education and the experiences of people who have stayed in countries that are tolerate marijuana use for recreational purposes on their beliefs regarding the relaxation of the Cannabis Control Law. On May 12-13th, 2022, a web-based questionnaire survey was presented to Japanese nationals aged 18-41 years who had spent at least 5 days in a marijuana-tolerant country. Univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted with “Views on the Relaxation of the Cannabis Control Law” as the objective variable. A total of 160 respondents (45.6% male) responded, of whom 33.8% supported relaxing the law for the consumption of recreational cannabis in the form of food, drink, or smoke. Additionally, 27.5% of the respondents had encountered recreational cannabis through some channel during their stay. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed a significant positive association between idea of supporting the relaxation of the law and the tolerance of the image of the physical and mental effects of recreational cannabis and the social effects of its distribution. Neither knowledge of marijuana and drug abuse nor the experience of being encouraged to use it during their stay were significantly associated. The study suggested that in order to deter marijuana use during stays in such countries, it is necessary not only to improve knowledge, but also to foster imagination and the ability to think and predict the physical and social effects of its use.

The importance of promoting self-medication is increasing, and the active participation of pharmacies is required to support this. We developed a training program based on the Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction (ARCS) model, which is a motivational design process to train pharmacists who support the proper use of OTC drugs, and for insurance pharmacists who usually perform dispensing work. In the six months of training, we conducted six sessions for insurance pharmacists on the subject of colds and constipation. In addition to conducting lectures and exercises on OTC drugs, we provided pharmacists with an opportunity to practice the training content during their daily work, and discuss solutions to the problems that they encountered. Of the eight participants who attended all workshops and were part of the final evaluation, seven provided OTC drugs after considering whether it was necessary to provide them. A total of six advised patients who came to the pharmacy to have their prescription medications dispensed that there were OTC medications that they should be careful about taking. These results suggest the usefulness of this training program based on the ARCS motivational design model.

To promote the stockpiling of regular medicines for disasters (SMD), we investigated SMD rates and clarified the relationship between SMD status (Yes or No) and the characteristics of patients with chronic diseases. A survey was provided to patients visiting the pharmacies in Hokkaido. SMD was defined as a patient having a supply of regular medicine for 7 days or more and replacing with new medicine within one year. Of a total of 537 participants (51.0% male; mean age 65.8 years), 61.1% had experienced a major disaster. The SMD rate was extremely low at 15.3%. The median score for a patient’s understanding of the regular medicine names (5-point scale: 1＝hardly understood, 5＝almost understood) was 2. The median number of monthly pharmacy visits was 0.8. 5.4% were recommended SMD by physicians or pharmacists. Results from multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that positive patient characteristics included age (OR＝1.154, 95%CI [1.026-1.298], P＝0.017), understanding of the regular medicine names (1.724, [1.039-2.859], P＝0.035), and recommendation of SMD by physicians or pharmacists (5.991, [2.616-13.722], P<0.001). A negative patient characteristic was the number of pharmacy visits (0.587, [0.383-0.899], P＝0.014). The most influential positive factor was the recommendation of SMD by physicians or pharmacists; however, only 5.4% of the participants had experienced this. The findings of this study indicated important that health care providers and the government to work together to devise easy-to-understand measures to inform local residents about the importance of SMD and how to them, conduct educational activities.