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Comment by rangibaby | Hacker News Reader

> Living in Korea, it's just baffling to see these ridiculous, archaic attitudes toward marijuana in Korea and Japan.

It's an East Asian cultural aversion to drug culture that has roots in how opium was used to dominate China.

OTOH Japanese love medicines; doctors give out pills that are strongly regulated overseas like rohypnol like candies. CBD oil is completely legal OTC

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Had a major surgery in Japan that required general anesthesia. During recovery, the only pain killer they would provide was loxoprofen (ibuprofen). Naturally, this didn't do much, and I couldn't sleep through the pain. But thankfully, I was given a prescription for brotizolam quite readily - - a powerful and abusable hypnotic used for sedation...

Anyway, still gotta say thank you to the doctor that put my knee back together! Also, with insurance the total was less than $1,000 and my drugs were a few bucks -- don't even want to imagine the cost back in the US.

yes but the social insurance system is deep in the red so technically your surgery is paid with debt.

It's hard to display emotion through text, and I say the following without flippancy: I pay my taxes and pension.

So I'd like to think I'm doing my part. Also, I highly doubt I will retire here and begin drawing said pension.

Sure you are doing your part, but you should avoid glossing about the fact that it's cheap compared to the US when in fact the real cost is completely hidden to you and is reported to future generations.

It might not just be $1k, but the US is pretty obviously less economically efficient in how it deals with medical issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... shows the US spending much more per capita than other countries do, especially including Japan.

The real cost was not hidden. In fact, it was quite clear to me -- it was on my bill. Even still, the total was a tiny fraction of what a similar procedure would have cost in the US.

There is no objective cost for a service.

Just curious: why would you not want to retire there?

> CBD oil is completely legal OTC

CBD isn't psychoactive, so not surprising?

Maybe because it's close relation to weed. A lot of people (in the US) associate cbd with being the same thing as weed just as an oil. Given the topic of weed acceptance there I think that's what makes it surprising. People there are able to make the clear distinction.

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