"Eric Takabayashi" <etakajp@yahoo.co.jp> wrote in message
news:3FB37F11.B28571F8@yahoo.co.jp...
>
> I used to believe it was crap that some Japanese believed that they were
> somehow different physically, that the Japanese government feels it
> necessary to confirm the safety of foreign approved drugs on Japanese
> people, etc.
>
> Well it turns out that ethnic groups actually do have meaningful physical
> differences. I knew that there were differences between ethnic groups
> (and age groups and genders) for susceptibility to certain diseases and
> conditions. I did not know until recently that different races even
> reacted differently to the same medications and treatments for ailments.
>

Yes I think this is true, I work at a pharmaceutical company and we have a
section that is devoted to understanding how different drugs are
metabolized. They focus a lot on a group of enzymes that are responsible for
metabolizing foods, drugs in the intestine and liver (P450 enzymes) and
always have to deal with the fact that there can be significant differences
among individuals in their P450 profile, e.g. smokers v.s. non-smokers, and
much broader differences among ethnic groups. It creates problems in a
market where drugs are sold internationally, and in many cases some local
clinical trials including metabolism studies are required to get a drug
approved in Japan that is already approved overseas. But in the case of
alcohol, I think it is mainly alcohol dehydrogenase that is responsible for
how much a person can drink and how drunk he gets, and as I recall levels of
this are lower in Asian populations. So Japanese should be less tolernant of
alcohol, not more. But levels can be induced to increase if you tend to
drink a lot, and I bet there is a lot of serious induction going on. Also, I
bet that for someone who drinks a lot, they might know how to function while
drunk a little better than someone who doesn't drink too much.

I am surprised by Mike's stories about truck drivers drinking and driving.
When I was working in Japan this year I found that people in my company were
very very careful not to drive while drunk, just because the fines where so
huge. This was actually a big difference I saw between the time I was here
in the mid-90s to this year. Before, I had seen a lot of drunk driving, but
this year I saw almost none - and now a big part of nomikai logisitics
includes arranging rides back home after drinking.

What is the fine nowadays for drunk driving? I think I saw something like
30-Man?

I think the fine for driving without a license is 20-Man. Guess who forgot
their international driver's license when they lived in Japan this year?