I have an interesting personal anecdote on this. I'm a 27-year-old Caucasian American (relevant) who doesn't speak any Japanese and who recently spent 3 months

I have an interesting personal anecdote on this. I'm a 27-year-old Caucasian American (relevant) who doesn't speak any Japanese and who recently spent 3 months in Japan with my girlfriend. Her aunt by adoption is an ethnically Japanese native of Tokyo who of course speaks fluent Japanese, and we spent a month living with her there. At one point, we went over her aunt's friend's family's house for dinner. The friend's family does not speak any English. All night we managed to have a really interesting and fun time by using Google translate to translate what I wanted to say (my gf mostly just spectated), and Google translate would horribly mistranslate it to humorous and confusing effect, and then Yuka (the aunt) would explain to the family what I actually meant with a proper translation. Now in the middle of dinner, after a good hour of this and now at a stage where we had mostly set google translate aside, it came up that I don't drink alcohol, and the father commented how much money I must save this way. And I, fool that I am, joked "oh no I blow all the savings on cocaine." And I looked at Yuka, who chuckled and said "no, no, I'm not going to translate that." But she didn't add any cultural warning, so I thought she was just being a little formal. So I said, "fine I'll translate it with google translate!" Now sure, you might say it was a bad joke, but in the US depending who you're eating with it would still elicit chuckles or smiles, even if it was just polite. Not in Japan. When I held up the phone with the translation for them to see, the reaction was shocked silence. It was as though I had held up an image of hardcore pornography at the table. Even the two high school age boys were horrified, not so much as a smile. After a moment the father muttered in halting English "bad joke." And that is how I learned just how taboo drugs are in Japan. In retrospect Yuka found it hilarious. "I told you not to say it!" "No you didn't, you just said you wouldn't translate it, that's not the same thing!" "Ha ha well..."