Playback ’14] “A woman was walking right behind me…” Ikebukuro “dangerous drug” accident – horrifying eyewitness testimony

What did “FRIDAY” report 10, 20, or 30 years ago? In “Playback Friday,” we take a look back at the topics that were hot at the time. This time, we bring you a report from 10 years ago in the July 11, 2002 issue, “Ikebukuro: Lawbreaking Herb Man Hits 8 People, Runaway Car Crashes Right in Front of Me! I took this picture!

At 8 p.m. on June 24, ’14, a woman in her 20s was killed and seven men and women in their 20s and 30s were seriously injured by a runaway car on the street in front of the police box at the west exit of JR Ikebukuro Station. The following is the testimony of the first caller who narrowly escaped disaster.

A car passed by one meter from me.

“What a bang! and a scream of “Crap! I turned around and saw a young man about 40 meters behind me. When I turned around, I saw a young woman and a man in a suit lying about 40 meters behind me, and an RV snaking along the sidewalk. The RV was coming toward us at 40-50 km/h.

Mr. A, who works at a restaurant, was walking downtown to go to work. Suddenly, a runaway car approached him. The distance between me and the runaway car quickly became 3 to 4 meters.

The car hit a post, springing two women, one in pink and the other in a black one-piece dress, who were walking right behind me. The impact slowed me down a bit. I quickly jumped toward the roadway. The car passed a meter beside me and immediately hit a phone booth. I didn’t feel alive.

The car finally stopped after the hood was wrecked. Until then, the driver had kept his foot on the gas pedal and the steering wheel was not turned at all.

“Near the post where I was knocked down, there was a woman in pink, who had just been hit behind me, and a woman in a black one-piece, who had white eyes and was spewing blood like a fountain from her mouth, lying on top of each other. The pink woman tried to raise herself up by putting her hands on the ground, but she fell right back down again.

A police officer from the police station arrived shortly after, and Mr. A called 119, telling the two women to hang on until an ambulance arrived. The ambulance arrived about five minutes later. A puddle of blood had already formed around the woman in the black one-piece.

Suspect B (37 at the time), who was caught red-handed violating the Automobile Driving Punishment Law, had been driving after inhaling a law-evading herb. When he was pulled out of the car by a police officer, he was drooling and, according to Mr. A, “seemed to have no idea what he had done.

Suspect B had once worked for a money-lending company that charged high interest rates (about 19 times the legal limit), and in 2003 he was arrested on charges of violating the Money Lending Business Act and the Capital Subscription Law. According to acquaintances, he seemed to be working at a club in Roppongi at the time of the incident.

Suspect B stated in the police investigation, “I smoked some law-abiding herbs before driving. （He stated, “I remember up to the north exit of Ikebukuro (before the scene of the crime), but after that I have no memory at all until I was approached by a police officer. As a result of the investigation, a type of synthetic cannabinoid was detected in the plant fragments found in Suspect B’s car, but it was not regulated by law at that time. This incident led to its subsequent designation as a designated drug.

Around 1995, drugs not regulated by law began to be sold as “legal drugs. Later, the name was changed to “deportation drugs” because the name was misleading.’ In the 2000s, one type of drug, “depraved herb,” containing synthetic cannabinoids similar to marijuana, began to appear on the market. The number of users increased explosively around 2011 due to media coverage and Internet sales, and health problems and accidents caused by inhalation became a social problem. In response, the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law was revised in 2001, and the crackdown had just become stricter.

The accident in Ikebukuro led to the new term “dangerous drugs” for “law-abiding drugs,” and nationwide crackdowns were strengthened. As a result, the number of deaths due to the use of dangerous drugs dropped from 112 in 2002 to 11 in 2003, and then continued to decline, reaching zero between 2008 and 2011. However, from January to February of this year, the number of deaths was reduced to 11.

However, in January and February of this year, a man and a woman in their 20s jumped to their deaths from an apartment building after ingesting a dangerous drug with ingredients similar to the synthetic drug LSD. It is also fresh in our minds that a number of people were taken to hospitals last November after eating “marijuana gummies” containing ingredients similar to marijuana, which are not regulated by law. Dangerous drugs” that are not covered by the law still exist.