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The story
On September 28, former TV personality Masashi Tashiro (69) opened up about his ongoing battle with drug dependency on his YouTube channel. Accompanied by staff from the NPO APARI, he underwent his 21st periodic drug test and reported a negative result. His remark — “They tell me to just quit right away, but it takes time” — sparked a debate on 5ch’s Entertainment/Sports News+ board over whether addiction is an illness or a form of self-indulgence. The names of other celebrities with past drug troubles, including Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Ryotaro Shimizu, and ASKA, also came up, with commenters split between skepticism about relapse and sympathy for those who keep speaking openly as former addicts.
Masashi Tashiro opens up about his fight against drug addiction: “They say ‘just quit already’… but it takes time”
Former TV personality Masashi Tashiro (69) updated his YouTube channel on the 28th with a segment discussing his ongoing battle with drug addiction.
To make sure he never repeats his past mistakes, Tashiro keeps up monthly drug tests. This one marked his 21st, and he shared footage of himself being tested with staff from the NPO APARI present, smiling as he reported a negative result.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
At this point guys like Tashiro can basically only become living witnesses telling everyone how scary drugs are lol
Forget just being on TV constantly — he'd probably be living it up as a respected veteran entertainer, remembered as Ken Shimura's capable right-hand man.
I was only hooked on cigarettes for 6 years and it was that hard.
No way someone who's been using for over 10 years can just quit.
It's not just cigarettes — if you told me that starting tomorrow I could never again do alcohol, pachinko, gaming, sex, or masturbation for the rest of my life, there's no way I could manage that either.
Guys like Tashiro have had their brains rewired to crave the drug, so I do feel for them.
That's because you're trying to quit cold turkey while still pulling nicotine deep into your lungs.
Just switching to oral smoking that doesn't reach the lungs clears up nicotine addiction — taken step by step it's surprisingly easy.
Most people just don't know that.
That's supposedly how it was for Nori-P (Noriko Sakai, the singer/actress with a past drug case), right?
Drinking, smoking, gambling —
people who can really quit just quit outright.
Was it voluntary?
He keeps using because he has no real intention of quitting.
It's really about how well you can 'interrupt' it.
You'd basically have to go into using meth already resolved to quit, which is a contradiction in itself.
Right.
Apparently the brain literally gets rewired to crave stimulants.
So trying to quit on willpower alone is a lost cause.
The only real option is physical isolation from the drug.
Background and key points of this discussion
Since 2001, Tashiro has been arrested and served time multiple times for violations of the Stimulants Control Act and related offenses. Since his release, he has continued sharing his road to recovery with support from the NPO APARI, and the monthly self-testing reported here is part of that effort — though opinions remain divided over whether a celebrity with an arrest record should keep speaking publicly about it. The thread split over whether to see addiction as “weakness of will” or as “an illness involving changes in the brain,” with many commenters in the latter camp showing understanding that it’s a condition requiring specialized treatment. At the same time, his other scandals — including a voyeurism case unrelated to drugs — remain fresh in people’s minds, making for a complicated mix of sympathy and criticism that’s hard to capture through the back-and-forth of comments alone.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Entertainment/Sports News+) thread “[Entertainment] Masashi Tashiro opens up about his fight against drug addiction: “They say ‘just quit already’… but it takes time”.”
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