He Took Out His Throat Medicine in a US Newsroom and the Room Panicked

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Ryukakusan is a herbal throat remedy that has been on Japanese shelves since the 1870s. The classic version comes as an extremely fine beige powder in a small tin with a tiny spoon. You scoop out a dose, tip it onto your tongue, and let it dissolve. Millions of people do this every winter without thinking about it.

Powdered medicine is an entirely ordinary category in Japan — plenty of over-the-counter remedies come as loose powder in tins or paper sachets. In the United States it is almost absent from pharmacy shelves. Pills, capsules, syrups. Which means the sight of someone opening a tin of fine powder, measuring out a scoop, and putting it in their mouth pattern-matches to exactly one thing.

A man who studied in the US posted about doing precisely that before an interview at the newspaper he was working with. The reaction was not confusion. It was detailed, urgent correction on proper technique. The discussion that followed went after every angle of it.

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I’ve used Ryukakusan for years. Back when I was studying in the US, I pulled it out to soothe my throat before an interview at the newspaper I was working with, and the room around me visibly stirred. I thought, oh no, they think this is something illegal, so I said, this is Japanese throat medicine, here’s how you use it — and scooped out a normal dose into my mouth. That’s when they stopped me: STOP! You’ll overdose and die! You snort a small amount of ◯◯ine through your nose! Are you crazy?! We cleared it up eventually, but the rumor that I’m that energetic because of that stuff went around for quite a long time after…

昔から龍角散を愛用してるのですが、アメリカ留学時にお世話になってた新聞社で取材の前に喉を潤そうと龍角散をだしたら、あきらかに周りがざわざわ。「ヤバい薬と間違えられる！」と思い「これは日本の喉の薬で、このように使います」と説明しながら適量をすくって口に放り込んだら「やめろ！オーバードーズで死ぬぞ！◯◯インは鼻から少量吸うんだ！お前はクレージーか！」ととめられたことがある。その後誤解は解けたが「あいつがハイテンションなのは、きっとあれのせいだ」という噂が結構長い間広がっていた…

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The powdered kind comes in a tin though, right? Is there anything about it that reads as hard drugs? Although I guess the powder is incredibly fine.

粉の龍角散って缶に入ってると思うんだけど、ヤバい薬と間違えられる要素あるか？粉もめちゃくちゃ細かいし。

In the US, basically the only powders that exist are the illegal ones. Most people over there have never seen medicine that wasn’t a tablet or a capsule.

アメリカには粉の薬って違法な薬物しか基本的に存在しないですからね錠剤かカプセルになってるのしか見たことない人がほとんです

I’m a devout believer in the powder version, but the most you can get in the US is the fruit-flavored tablets. No powder anywhere. And I don’t have the nerve to bring it over from Japan.

私は粉の龍角散の信者なんだけど、アメリカで売ってるのはギリギリフルーツ味のタブレットタイプ…粉は手に入らない。日本から持ち込む勇気もない。

Being told you’ll overdose and die over throat powder is funny w

オーバードーズで死ぬぞはさすがにおもろいw

IT’S NOT C◯CAINE!! One day I want it to be as widely known as soy sauce…!

コ◯インじゃねぇよ！！早く醤油とかと同じぐらい、知られるようになれば…！

I mean, it made it through airport security in the first place. Cough cough 😷

まず、空港できちんと持ち込めているわけですからねゴホンゴホン😷

Snorting it is the thing that would actually kill you

鼻から吸った方が死んでしまうわ

There was that phase where people were snorting Ryukakusan, though. The company has officially told everyone not to.

龍角散を鼻から吸うの流行ったよな公式からは禁止されてるけど

From the name I always assumed Ryukakusan was kampo with roots on the mainland, but I looked it up and it actually started in Japan. (Kampo is the Japanese tradition of herbal medicine, developed out of Chinese practice over many centuries.)

龍角散って名前から大陸起源の漢方薬かと思っていましたが、調べてみたら日本発祥なんですね。

Right, there’s a decent number of things people take for kampo that are actually Japanese formulations built on the same tradition.

漢方と思ったけど、実は日本の薬な和漢薬みたいなの結構ありますよね

This is medicine, so let’s write it nice and big on the tin in marker so nobody gets the wrong idea. Um, what’s the English word for kusuri again? Oh right, I bought this at a drugstore. DRUG. There we go, perfect!

これは薬だから誤解されないように、容器にマジックで大きく書いておこう。えーと「薬」って英語でなんで言うんだっけ？そうだこれ、ドラッグストアで買ったんだった。「DRUG」と、これでヨシ！

The Japanese word kusuri covers everything from aspirin to prescription medication, with none of the second meaning that “drug” carries in English. And the standard Japanese word for a pharmacy is doraggu sutoa — a straight borrowing of “drug store.” So writing DRUG on the tin feels, from the inside, like the most helpful possible label.

Also, why does everyone in the room know that using it that way would kill you w

そも、何で周囲の人間は「そんな使い方をしたらオーバードーズで死ぬ」とか知ってんのよｗ

Suspiciously well informed on both the technique and the dosage w

お作法と量に詳しくて笑うw

Americans who are oddly knowledgeable about ◯◯ine…

◯◯インに妙に詳しいアメリカ人さん…

It was getting alarming so I’ve been mentally filling in the blank with Toyoko Inn.

物騒なので伏字を東横インで再生しておいた

The original poster censored the drug’s name as ◯◯イン — masking the front and leaving only the final syllable, in. Toyoko Inn is a chain of no-frills business hotels found near stations all over Japan, and its name ends in exactly the same in. So the blank can be filled either way, and one of the two options is much calmer.

Why do the coworkers know how to use coca w

なんで同僚はコカの使い方知ってんのよw

……They learned it while reporting a story. That’s got to be it! w

……新聞の取材で知ったんですよ、きっとそうだ！w

He should have crushed it properly with a credit card, rolled up a bill, and inhaled through the nose. No fuss at all. And the etiquette isn’t complete until you drink some water afterward to settle yourself. Then you say what a fine preparation, and pass it to the next person. (That last line is lifted from tea ceremony — the set compliment a guest gives before handing the bowl along.)

ちゃんとクレカで砕いてから、札を丸めて鼻から吸えば騒ぎにはならなかったんだ・・・。あとで水を飲んで落ち着けるまでが作法だ。結構なお手前で、と言って次の人に回す。

One of the reasons cashless and QR payments were slow to spread in the US (incorrect)

アメリカでキャッシュレスやQRコード決済の広がりが遅かって理由の一つですね(誤解)

Americans: 90g…… how many doses is that?

米国人「90ｇ...... 何回分だ？」

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Though if that whole tin were packed full of cocaine, that would come to a serious amount of money 😂

しかしあの容器にたっぷりコカイン入ってるとなると、相当の価格になるんじゃ😂

Honestly I’m more curious about the energy level that had people saying he’s always like that

どちらかというといつもアイツはハイテンションだと言われるそのテンションの凄さが気になりました

I haven’t used Ryukakusan in years, but yeah, someone who doesn’t know it could absolutely read it that way… Ohta’s Isan could get the same reaction. (Ohta’s Isan is another long-running Japanese powdered remedy, this one for stomach trouble.)

龍角散は長年使っていないけれど、確かに知らん人が見たらこういう誤解を避けるケースもありそう…。太田胃散でもあり得そうですね。

Same, something like this happened to me when I was studying abroad! 🤣🤣 I kept saying it’s good for your throat, and I still got the whole talking-to: that just makes you feel that way in the moment, you’re on the honor’s list, you work so hard, this isn’t like you 🤭

同じく留学時代に似た経験あります!🤣🤣 喉に良い、て言ってるのに「その時そんな気分になるだけだ。あなたはhonor's listに入ってる位いつも頑張ってるのよ?そんな人じゃなかったでしょ?」と諭されました🤭

It’s not just Ryukakusan, you hear about kampo getting misread all the time.

龍角散に限らず漢方は勘違いされるってよく言うよね

Genuine problem, actually — kakkonto and maoto are completely everyday things in Japan, but the ephedra in them can be a precursor for meth, so they’re restricted in some countries… (Both are standard herbal cold remedies you can buy at any Japanese drugstore.)

実際問題日本だと一般的な葛根湯や麻黄湯は、含まれてる麻黄が覚◯剤の原料になったりならなかったりで禁止されてたりするんですよね…

There’s a whole pile of stuff they’ve never encountered — Seirogan, the nasal capsules for rhinitis. Even mercurochrome got puzzled looks. (Seirogan is an intensely medicinal-smelling stomach pill that’s been a household fixture in Japan for over a century.)

正露丸とか鼻炎を治す鼻カプセルとかいろいろ未知の薬があるよね。赤チンすら不思議がられた

Wonder what face they’d make if you brought Ibokorori,, (an over-the-counter wart remover, sold in every drugstore)

イボコロリとか持って行ったらどういう顔をされるのか、、

This Ryukakusan thing — there was a version of it on a radio show over ten years ago. Someone at airport security gets asked What’s this, answers Drug, and everything goes sideways from there. I still remember the host being completely unable to stop laughing.

この龍角散の話たぶん10年以上前のファンフラで、空港で、What's this? — Drug. で大変なことになったという話に、克也さんの笑いが止まらなかったの未だに覚えてる。

Bit off topic, but a lot of English-only speakers apparently can’t pronounce Ryukakusan and can’t hear it properly either… Seems like rya, ryu and ryo just land as some kind of D sound to an English ear.

あんまし関係ないけどアメリカ人というか英語しか喋れない人って龍角散って言葉の発音が出来ない上に聞き取れない人が多いっぽいんだよな...。りゃりゅりょの発音が英語話す人からするとD系統の発音にしか聞こえないらしい。

Clearing out your sinuses and throat does make it easier to feel energized, so they weren’t technically wrong

鼻腔や咽喉部の異常が取り除かれることでハイテンションにはなりやすいので間違ってはいない

My take

Not stopping him outright, but correcting his technique — there is something very American about that, perhaps.

#Funny #Culture

Source & translation note

Comments loosely translated for tone. Reactions collected from Togetter and X threads.

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