Weird laws around the world

Holliday Palazzolo, Design Editor

I’m sure we’ve all come across those really weird laws here and there. For example: It’s illegal to spit on the sidewalk on Sunday in Missouri. Weird, but nothing too strange, right? WRONG! If you think that some of the laws in America are weird, wait until you hear about some of the other laws that are present all around the world.

Let’s start with the beautiful island of Anime, Tradition, and delicious food, Japan. As picturesque as Japan looks, Japan has a lot of weird laws, especially since they’ve recently reopened their borders to tourists. One of, if not one of the most unusual laws in Japan is: You can get imprisoned for up to five years for putting Ice cream in a mailbox. As strange as this may seem, this is very true! Apparently this law was established by Article 42 of the Japanese Postal Law which is in place to protect the privacy of both the sender and recipient. Although that doesn’t fully explain why it’s such a crime to put ice cream in mainboxes, one thing that might make a few people laugh is that in order for this to be a LAW that someone can be IMPRISONED for, this must’ve been a regularly occurring problem at some time in Japan.

Another weird thing you might notice in Japan is that there are very few public trash cans, which is kinda ironic considering that Japan is one of the cleanest countries in the world. As odd as this may be, a quick google search will give you your answer, and every single article you see will all say the same thing. A domestic terrorist attack in the Tokyo train station on March 20th 1995 where a cult released sarin gas into the train cars. Without getting too far into it, Japan removed many of their public trash cans, in fear of another attack since trash cans were seen as a potential hiding spot. The only time you’ll ever see a trashcan in japan is often in a park, or next to a large setup of vending machines.

Now if you think these laws are weird, then let’s look at some laws that are a little closer to home. So look no further than America’s hat, Canada. Although Canada seems like the second country similar to America, they too have a lot of weird laws. Apparently in Canada, under Section 365 of the Canadian justice laws, it is illegal to pretend to practice witchcraft. Because Canada has a strong connection with the UK, this law came into play when the UK passed the Witchcraft act in 1542. As ridiculous as this may seem, breaking this law will only carry a maximum of six months in jail. It’s also Illegal to scare the queen of england, kinda hard to do that now, huh?

For any seniors preparing to graduate and leave the nest, as they begin to enter the harsh adult world, they realize that they have to abide by the laws every single day, and breaking them will have much harder consequences. That being said, be grateful that we don’t have as many weird laws here. But I think that it goes without saying that you shouldn’t put ice cream in someone’s mailbox.