LA Times – The Land Cigarettes Call Home
In Japan, half of all men smoke, and lung cancer is a leading killer. But then, the government owns 67% of the big tobacco seller.

The Finance Ministry owns 67% of Japan Tobacco, or JT, which until 1985 was a government monopoly. In an era of tight budgets, tobacco contributes $19 billion a year to government coffers in taxes and dividends, making it among the largest revenue sources. The ministry, not health authorities, controls tobacco policy, and promotion of the industry is an explicit national goal.
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Japan’s warning label is among the world’s weakest: “Please remember to follow good smoking manners. As smoking might injure your health, please be careful not to overdo it.”
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The greatest source of industry clout is the Tobacco Business Law, one of a string of related measures dating to 1904. The law says the government must own at least 50% of JT in perpetuity and, as a matter of national policy, “promote the healthy development of the tobacco industry and ensure stable revenue in the interest of a sound national economy.”
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In contrast to the Finance Ministry’s large tobacco section, the Health Ministry doesn’t have a single full-time official working on smoking issues Û even though smoking accounts for the nation’s highest level of premature deaths, triple the number of suicides and nine times that of traffic fatalities.
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The national health budget this year for anti-smoking awareness is $180,000, for a practice that kills 95,000 Japanese a year. By comparison, the budget for the prevention of AIDS, which kills approximately 45 people a year, is $94 million.
Horrific stuff- gruesome. I don’t even know where to start pulling it all apart.
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via Japan Digest – Chiyoda-ku Ban On Street Smoking Arouses Interest in Other Cities
In the month since Tokyo’s center city Chiyoda-ku [ward] banned smoking on the streets, it has collected Yen 798,000 in fines from 399 offenders, and its sidewalks are amazingly clear of cigarette butts, Nihon Keizai reported.



The publicity it received for its unique new ordinance has attracted officials of other cities to come see how it works, and an LDP contingent in the Fukuoka city assembly has decided to try to pass a similar measure there, the paper said. Other municipalities that have sent missions include not only big cities like Yokohama and Kobe but also Shirakawa village, in Gifu prefecture, known for its unique residential architecture with pointed thatched roofs. One group taking pictures of no-smoking signs and sidewalks last week came all the way from Seoul, South Korea. They are all definitely interested, but some see problems. One impediment is Chiyoda’s Yen 120 million annual budget for enforcing the ordinance. The ward fields about 60 officials to patrol its streets at any given time, to issue tickets and collect Yen 2,000 each from violators. Because the ban isn’t backed by the penal code, violators can evade fines by giving false names and addresses, making losers of the honest folk who do ‘fess up, Nikkei said. Most people are honest and pay the fines, but some get in arguments with enforcement, the paper said.