Toyota PR exec Julie Hamp isn’t having the best time in Japan right now, and the situation could worsen thanks to the nation’s strict drug importation laws.
As explained by Jalopnik‘s Kat Callahan, Japan requires users of any controlled substance brought into the nation to walk in a limited amount of the prescribed meds before customs, declare the drugs, and present a doctor’s note translated into Japanese before they can be allowed into one’s medicine cabinet. Otherwise, narcotics like the Oxycodone brought in by Hamp are verboten, and cannot even be sold by or found in a pharmacy in Japan; they can’t also be mailed.
Non-controlled drugs, meanwhile, don’t need a translated note, but must now be walked in and declared, and only a one-month supply is allowed to enter the country.
While Hamp could attempt to plead ignorance on the laws of the land, her case would need to depend on her not hiding the Oxycodone in a box marked “Necklaces” among a ton of toy necklaces, and thus, avoiding customs declarations in so doing. Unfortunately, this is the scenario which played out, giving prosecutors the ability to declare criminal intent on the part of Hamp; it’s also why Toyota’s HQ was raided by police a few days ago.
Should the criminal intent charge stick, Hamp would be in prison for a long time before finally given the boot out of the country for the rest of her life.
Is her necklace in that photo made out of drugs?
I was really hoping this was going to be some sort of deal where the sender sends it to the wrong address on purpose and the buyer picks it up off the porch before the addressee gets home. But it sure doesn’t seem to be going in that direction. I feel kind of bad for her, addiction is a hell of a thing.
For those who can’t figure out my admittedly poorly worded statement up there – this is an example of what I was trying to come up with:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-07-1777915510_x.htm
That’s a really bad story. Conservatives are supposed to line up behind the police during Obama’s latest effort to tear the country apart, but the police are just your average unaccountable public employees.
CJinSD – this is happening in Japan not the USA so how is this Obama’s fault?
It’s just a continuation of CJinSD’s Obama man-crush. He just can’t control himself.
dantes_inferno – ironic……. a complaint from the right about extremely strict and conservative law enforcement.
Prince George’s County is in Maryland, which is in the US.
CJinSD –
I should be more specific….WTF does your original post have to do with:
1. drugs were 1st detected in Japan.
2. They let them pass and raided her place in Japan.
3. She is currently being detained in Japan.
4. She faces prosecution and jail in Japan OR prosecution and deportation FROM Japan.
Lastly……
What does, “Prince George’s County in Maryland” have to do with any of this?
Am I the only one not following your train of thought?
chirp……………chirp…………..chirp
On the subject of addiction…………… sir, can you please urinate in this cup………..oh……… and yes it will have to be supervised.
How many different-looking stock photos does she have? So far, we’ve gone from weird high-neck Starship Troopers uniform, to PTA mom yearbook, to real estate agent.
Google images has a ton of them. Although this one isn’t a stock photo, she looks a tad derpy. http://www.newsoxy.com/business/toyota-julie-hamp-4-179326.html
News Oxy? Hehe.
Love your comment.
This one definitely IS the real estate agent /biz version glamor shots version.
This isn’t going to end well. Toyota doesn’t like embarrassment or controversy.
And apparently the people of Japan aren’t fans of hillbilly Heroin shipped via the mail with a false customs declaration. I think she might be screwed. I’d love to know why Toyota felt the need to hire an ex-GM employee.
Silly rabbit! They hired her because GM is known for inspiring out-of-the-box thinking.
It was ex-GM employees like Jim Press who grew Toyota’s American operations into the juggernaut they are today. Most of the people who staffed Toyota in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s came from the Big 3.
“This isn’t going to end well. Toyota doesn’t like embarrassment or controversy.”
All this dark foreboding over her treatment is funny.
“She will be taken to an Eta village and buried up to her neck. Passers-by will be invited to saw at her neck with a bamboo saw.
She will die very old.”
Hai! Wakarimasu, Anjin-san.
Toyota’s way of adding excitement to their company. Can’t do it with design and engineering. Throw in a pill popper.
This is my aluminum foil hat conspiracy theory.
Toyota knew she had a pill problem, they wanted to fast track her to the top. Use her as an example of diversity in the company. When they brought her to the home base as the first woman at a high level they figured her vices will prevent her from succeeding one way or another.
Now they can say they are a diverse company and use her record of promotion as proof. They will also not have to promote anyone else to prove that they have diversity in the senior ranks at the home offices.
They will giver her a package and send her back to Michigan.
Alternatively, this is what happens when people are promoted for which boxes they can check instead of what they can do.
This.
The theory that she was promoted because of her gender and the color of her skin is pure fact-less speculation.
I have worked for large corporations for over 20 years and to me it seems that women have to significantly better than their male competitors in order to get promoted to senior executive positions. Toyota is a well run organization and, while they may have become more open to hiring from outside Japan, I doubt very much that they would ever knowingly appoint someone unqualified to a senior executive leadership position.
So, unless you have information to back up your assertion, let’s just stick to the facts.
From the newsoxy article linked further up:
“Hamp, who spent about two decades at General Motors and served as chief communications officer at PepsiCo, became a leading figure in Toyota’s diversity push when she was promoted to managing officer in April, just three years after joining the carmaker.
Hamp’s rise had also been viewed as a boost for the campaign launched by Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, to promote more women to senior management roles at Japanese companies.”
The emphasis being on 20 years automotive experience and being Chief Communications officer at Pepsi. Well qualified for the position at Toyota.
Any suggestion to the contrary is at best schadenfreude and at worst symptomatic of an ugly notion that the achievements of minorities are attributable only to preferential treatment.
Anyone that doesn’t want to shroud minority achievements in doubt should be opposed to affirmative action and diversity initiatives. You can’t pick people for their demographics and expect their mediocrity to be celebrated. Real talents will be recognized, but they would have gotten there without quotas.
” I doubt very much that they would ever knowingly appoint someone unqualified to a senior executive leadership position.”
I say depending on what the interviewing, and more importantly the executive assessment process is, it is entirely possible this happened. The politics cited may or may not have been contributing factors.
CJinSD – is drug addiction listed on those “ticky boxes”?
I doubt that even conservative Toyota asks their new executive hires to pee in a cup.
I briefly considered this too, but man, there has to be a better way to sabotage an initiative- this makes Toyota look bad on a number of levels.
Bets on her getting a longer/more severe punishment than Takada…
Moral of the story: Don’t be the naive. Gaijin don’t belong in Japan, and women don’t belong in positions of power.
If Japan can’t tell the difference between a couple of bottles and an international drug ring, their society is lost.
Kind of harsh, but can’t say I completely disagree.
As to Japan’s laws, I do disagree…their society is not lost. This is a Sun Tzu thing…put the fear into one thousand by destroying one. By harshly dealing with the ‘couple of bottles’, their society doesn’t need to worry as much about the ‘international drug rings.’ Not saying that it’s completely working. Put another way, they are keeping the camel’s nose outside the tent.
Isn’t this the same country where this is going on?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore_men
That’s happening in Korea too. I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. Rise of the Beta males it seems.
Except they won’t rise.
It seems all the ingredients are there for accelerated population reduction.
The temporary proliferation of the Beta male that is halted by lack of reproduction?
better?
@Athos
That’s a good point.
@bball40dtw
If they cannot or are not interested in having a 3D partner (thanks Wikipedia) they will hardly reproduce.
If they cannot access income sources/jobs, how are they going to gain influence and power?, hence how are they going to rise?
I based my comment on a paper (and very interesting at that) I read. It may be wrong to extrapolate its conclusions, but the ingredients are there.
Based on the above, I wouldn’t call them Beta either. There must be a reason why they are marginalised, either by society or self choice.
Japan already has an aging population, if the problem is compounded by people that are socially crippled and probably won’t pair and reproduce, where do you think this scenery goes?
Just in time to serve as a service class under a robot/automaton overclass.
Not being threatened by robot domination, they are the perfect citizens for a robot-dominated society.
And it will be a nasty amalgam of Brave New World, 1984 and Clockwork Orange, when and if it arrives in full force.
Japan does not aggressively counter this trend because it fits too well with Japan’s future, at least according to some who might be in a position to bring it about.
Or perhaps I read too much science fiction when I was young. Then again, maybe not…
To be fair much of that stems from the social conservatism that makes relationships emotionally unfulfilled and a certain level of open hedonism that pervades with the immense wealth they’ve developed in the recent five decades. Basically, why would you want a relationship in a society that has problematic human intimacy issues when you can fulfill your emotional needs with cheap toys and hedonistic adventures?
To call them ‘beta males’ is a complete misrepresentation of their culture. They’re no subjugated or ‘inferior’ regardless of how the description is being made between herbivore/carnivore or beta/alpha. It’s an emotional disconnect that stops them from even trying and a crippling emotional issue that isn’t likely to be dealt with until their social ideals thaw some. They’re both extremely liberal in popular allowances but so tradition and conservative bound they really struggle in finding relationships. It’s a problem that thankfully the US doesn’t really face because of our much different cultural positions outside of high-WASP centers.
I admire a concern for fairness when someone spews chowderhead clichés.
Sometimes I like chowderhead cliches but Xeranar is definitely more knowledgeable and thoughtful when it comes to this topic. I appreciate his knowledge and his post.
I know, I used the word ‘conservative’ which drives some of you to respond with a kneejerk ‘unh uh!’ response but the Japanese are extremely traditional and far more conservative than the US by a wide margin. The fact that they commit suicide if they fail to get the test score they needed to get into their career path is something that just isn’t known here in the US at the level it occurs in Japan. I mean, the police are put on 24 hour suicide watch for about a month when the scores come out. SAT scores or ACT scores just aren’t the end of the world by comparison.
I mean comparing southern baptists ultra-conservatives to the Japanese is just completely incompatible.
This is certainly a social issue that needs dealing with in a different manner.
Interesting facet of Japan, thanks for sharing.
Xeranar – thank you for the cultural insight.
Unfortunately when the words “conservative” or “liberal” are used the call to arms is signalled and “the rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air” war of ideologies storms to the forefront.
Herbivore men, well that is a new term for me. The badass Nips who fought the Marines toe to toe for 4 years in WWII must be turning over in their graves.
The Marines who fought them I also suspect are spinning.
I am probably being harsh, but I know several people who travel to Japan for business, and they have few compliments. The economic relationship between Japan and the US is also strained. They stuff their goods into the US like it’s a giant Walmart, not unlike China, though Japanese goods are generally higher quality, and the Japanese do try to export from the US occasionally.
I have no personal animosity for Japan, but it seems dissent is growing plentiful and compliments are rare, especially as the country blunders into another decade of stagnation. It seems the competence is a rare commodity in Japan, and they are always inventing new reasons to get rid of it, though, I might be giving Hamp way too much credit.
I’ve been to Japan more than 50 times on business. It’s certainly not perfect, no country is, but I expect that I could be happy living there. Even as a gaijin.
@TW5 – many Americans are still sensitive about Pearl Harbor so it makes sense that many Japanese are still sensitive about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The USA is not seen favourably in many parts of the world. When I’ve traveled abroad and admittedly not to much degree I’ve always been told to make sure that I identify myself as a Canadian to avoid distain and distrust by “locals”. I’ve even been approached by Americans and asked if I was really Canadian or an American trying to fly under the radar.
I haven’t traveled outside of Western Europe, but I can assure you my “eh” will be coming out if/when I travel again.
28-Cars-Later – that and stitching a Canadian flag on your pack, coat, or hat.
I wouldn’t of believed it until I experienced it first hand. It seemed worse in cities with big US military bases.
Well, hopefully you chaps get away with that. The Canadians I have met have a different accent than the Americans.
Athos Nobile – all depends on where you are from in Canada and the USA. I’ve been to California and I couldn’t tell any difference in accent between myself and them (well..white Caucasian them).
My wife’s cousin’s husband is a CEO for a shipping company with head office in Dallas Texas. He tells a funny story where Head Office brass wanted to consolidate call centres to save money. He argued that there were huge differences in accent between various parts of English Canada and the USA. They went ahead with a teleconference between regional heads. The Atlantic Canada head,a Newfoundlander with a very strong local accent could not understand the local Texan chief also with a strong regional accent (and vise versa).
You probably can google an auditory recording of a “Newfie” at their finest.
I’m sure Mark Stevenson would attest to the variability of accents being from the East Coast.
@Lou_BC
I’ve already got some Toronto FC gear, now to acquire something more generic.
@Athos
I’ll have to start watching some Canadian TV and see if I can’t pick one up, eh.
28-Cars-Later – Try Roots. They are a line of Canadian clothing. They have sweat’s, T-shirts etc with various “Canadian” logo’s on them.
Thanks, to Amazon I go.
My daughter has a lot of Roots branded clothing via hand-me-downs from my Canadian neighbors’ kids. Having some Canadian heritage myself, I knew the brand and have a few Roots Canadian Olympic team gear. My father in law wanted to know why someone would brand children’s clothes after Kunta Kinte’s life story.
Amazon didn’t seem to carry the clothing (had watches labeled Roots though) although I’m seeing some on Ebay.
I’ve decided its in my best interest to learn how to blend in as well as I can internationally.
I have a hard time believe the story about the educated Newfie who doesn’t drop his Newfie accent and has a difficult time with a Texan one. I happen to have several close Newfie friends who sound atrociously Newfie amongst themselves but more or less normalize to very generic standard North American accent when it suits them (when they’re with other people who aren’t from Newfoundland).
Anyway, I do agree with Lou that it depends on the region. Most Canadians from the larger cities and particularly the West Coast can easily pass as American and most Americans who don’t have a strong regional accent can easily pass as Canadian. There’s a reason that Americans backpackers sew on Canadian maple leaves on their packs when traveling in parts of the world where it is unpopular or dangerous to be American.
She is the most exciting thing to happen at Toyota in over 30 years. Who says Toyota is boring??
Julie is a good friend of mine. I had the unique honor of a dance with her at her GM retirement party (even though she was too young to retire) I have never known her to have more than a glass of wine that she didn’t finish. I have never seen any instance of substance abuse. she is as classy and compassionate as they come. I completely understand Mr Toyoda’s statement supporting her. tough time, but it will pass I hope and pray.
Thank you Buickman. To all the haters out there, let me remind you how quickly ones life can change… in the blink of an eye. Compassion is exactly what she needs right now. She is somebody’s wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend and she would never turn her back on anyone in their time of need. She is a beautiful person inside and out. Prayers is what she deserves and prayers is what she will get from me.
You’re right. But everyone deserves compassion. Even the ugly old dude with no friends. It’s a waste of human life either way.
Relax. Although we have higher standard of arresting criminals, standard of penalty is not that high. It would not be a death sentence as like in China or Singapore. Few month of jail if she wants to stay, or simply asked to leave the country.
Again, Asian stricter standard of drugs comes from sour memories of opium war.
You are a gentleman and a good friend.
John Marks
I feel sad for anyone anywhere, up on criminal drug/smuggling charges. Or locked up for alcohol related offenses when an illegal drug would not have lead to a terrible mistake, when *abused* instead. Humans have alway wanted and needed the shortest route to escape reality or pain. Putting people in rape cages for it is a fairly new practice.
She looks like an android (gynoid?) ! Perfect as Data’s grown up daughter (Lal) in an alternate universe where Lal survives
funny if you didn’t know Julie. no matter what happens, she will be okay in the long run.
Regardless of legal outcome, she’s doomed either way. The amount of embarrassment and disgrace brought among Toyota and its employees is her one way ticket to termination or resignation. She’ll probably lawyer up in the US and fight Toyota on this.