"Ground breaking smoking ban for Japan"

Submitted by Anna on April 16, 2008

Kanagawa prefecture have announced plans for a ‘Public Facilities No Smoking Regulation’. This regulation is already active in hospitals and schools but now there are plans to expand its reach to Pachinko parlors and Izakayas.

If this rule comes into force, it will be Japan’s first groundbreaking anti-smoking legislation.
Restaurants and shops serving food and drink are voicing concerns that this will negatively affect their sales. The medical establishment, who are a driving force behind anti-smoking measures, are giving their approval to this new regulation. In Kanagawa, this issue is already causing friction.

The Mainichi Shimbun reports some differing local opinions.

Against:

1. Ryoji Shiraishi, the owner of four pachinko parlors in Yokohama and is against the regulations due to concerns about sales says: “Over 70% of my customers smoke.”

2. Noriko Ebina, the Head of the Secretariat for Yokohama’s ‘Food and Drink Business Livelihood Health and Hygiene Trade Association’ (literal translation) says: “I feel we are being bullied. We have already been affected by the tightening of the Drink Driving Road Traffic Act…”

3. The public relations department for JT tobacco says, “Coffee shops, pachinko parlors and hotels have a different clientele so we are against a broad ban. It should be left up to each business owner to decide for themselves.”

For:

1. Yoshihito Fujiwara, the Director for Yokohama’s pediatricians’ ‘Anti-smoking Kanagawa Assembly for the Propulsion of Separate Smoking Areas’ says “these penal regulations are natural. Passive smoking has gone beyond being just annoying, it is a health affecting assault. There are limits to just suing people for breaching manners.”

2. Manabu Sakuda, the Board Chairman for the ‘Anti-smoking Scientific Society of Japan’ says “these rules that are thought of as groundbreaking in Japan yet are normal in other countries abroad.”

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported that in 2005 Japan had roughly 30.2 million smokers—around 25% of the population (see JIN: http://www.japaninc.com/jin422.

With countries such as the UK and Australia already imposing anti-smoking measures in public places and places serving food and drink, it seems only natural that Japan would be next in following in the footsteps of a global ban on smoking. However, as mentioned in JIN 422 (Smoke on the horizon: http://www.japaninc.com/jin422), the perception of smoking may be quite different from those in other countries. Although underage smoking is harshly frowned upon (and made harder recently with the new age identification measure for cigarette vending machines), and smoking whilst walking for a lady is thought of as very taboo, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported that in 2005 Japan had roughly 30.2 million smokers—that’s around 25%of the population who still smoke.

However, with smoking banned on many streets throughout the country, new smoking bans in taxis and regulation tightening for under-age smoking , it seems only natural that the next step for Japan would be to start banning it in public places…


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Anonymous (not verified)

August 19, 2011 - 00:15

Cars are such an essential part of our modern world that when you equate their exhaust fumes with cigarette smoke, you make a fool of yourself. Besides, there are many many many legal regulations on cars and their level of pollution. If you think that what comes out them is not in fact greatly reduced compared to what COULD come of them, you are even more foolish. Take away the many laws controlling such things and protecting us against such poisons, and then make your sarcastic comments. Honestly, comparing a drug habit that affects all others around the addict, to part of the integral backbone of our transport system?! Reductio Ad Absurdum.

Anonymous (not verified)

February 27, 2010 - 17:20

I find it hilarious when Pachinko and bar owners use statistics like "70% of my customers" are smokers. Perhaps, but 100% are gamblers, and that's why they go to Pachinko. People don't go to Pachinko to smoke, they go there to waste away the family fortune. Banning smoking won't keep them away. Indeed, I might even venture in and try losing my money if it becomes non smoking!

I have no problems with people smoking. It's a free world. I do have a problem with having MY choices of entertainment curtailed because I don't want to die of a grapefruit sized lung cancer tumor caused by some jackass smoking beside me.

PS: Who's the moron who decided to use this impossible-to-understand "cAPTCHA" security check.

Anonymous (not verified)

April 15, 2010 - 06:09

I smoke at home....i do not go anymore to bars,clubs and restaurant...i do not give my money where
my freedom of smoke is dead!!!! I pay for dinner,coffees out,drinks i spend money and i want enjoy
a "democratic cigarette"...if i cannot smoke i make lots of parties and dinners at home and invite
only smokers....democracy...and freedom....what a fake world!!!

Anonymous (not verified)

June 1, 2010 - 21:08

Well, you Japanese smoke more and still have less cancer and a higher life expectancy rate !

Just more proof that this smoking rage is bogus and intended only to remove our freedom and maybe even make us sick, as various forms of smoking actually cure cancer, like marijuana. Look it up. Look up Robert Melamede, University professor who says that cannabis makes cancer cells eat themselves. Not all cannabis plants make one high.

Many studies have shows non smokers getting more lung cancer then smokers. It's the radio treatments that seem to be killing people.

People are being brainwashed all over the world.. by the World Organisation of Health

Don't let them get you to !

Anonymous (not verified)

August 19, 2011 - 00:07

Not at all. The so-called 'Japan Paradox' is a purposeful myth, perpetuated by pro-smoking interest groups, and it is done so by intentional misrepresentation of statistics.

Japanese people live longer on average and have better health records STATISTICALLY but it does not mean AT ALL that Japanese smokers do not have smoking related illnesses. They do, most certainly. But what Japanese do NOT do, is partake in many of the OTHER harmful habits, mostly dietary, that Westerners do, thus it APPEARS to be a paradox that they live longer, but really, it is just that they are doing less to slowly kill themselves.

In addition, the diseases being examined are those common in the West, but just because they are less common in Japan, does not mean that there aren't OTHER prolific lifestyle diseases associated with smoking.

You are really misusing the data. The brainwashing is in your direction, unless you can show us all that drug addiction and dependency, breathing in hot smoke, poisons and harmful chemicals and of course, polluting the public space are in fact, good things.

Anonymous (not verified)

September 2, 2010 - 12:59

I quit smoking 1 year ago! When I come home late, after a trip to the pub, I always smell like smoke. Will save me dry cleaning costs!

Anonymous (not verified)

March 21, 2011 - 15:20

I gave up smoking years ago but I still respect the right of others to enjoy tobacco, a legal recreational drug by the way, which causes far less harm than alcohol. I am a well educated person who has freedom to choose what I do and where I go. I suggest all of you who wish to advocate yet more government control over a large proportion of the population, go and live somewhere where there is no freedom of choice of religion or politics and is run by corrupt officials.

As far as I'm concerned smoking is a matter of personal choice. If a business wants to allow smokers they should inform prospective staff of the health risks and leave it up to them to decide. I for one, enjoy the lively atmosphere of bars and other places in Japan that still allow smoking. I consider the risk of passive smoking to my health to be minimal, as shown by many independent medical studies throughout the world.

A quick skim of the above comments would also seem to suggest that many who are in support of smoking bans are abusive, disrespectful of others and generally poorly educated. Please find something more important to complain about. No one is making you sit in a room with smokers. Go to Starbucks, and other places that increasingly cater to non-smokers by having partitioned, separately ventilated areas for smokers. If demand is great enough other businesses will exercise their freedom of choice also and cater to non-smokers.

Anonymous (not verified)

February 5, 2012 - 15:12

what about the right for non-smokers to have clean air and free from smokers ?

kaeo773

May 17, 2011 - 03:53

I was a long time smoker for over 20 years. Since I have been smoke free for the last 2 years, I am glad the state I live is has a smoking ban.

I can't stand the smell of cigarettes anymore, and here where I live it cost almost 9.00 a pack. I have noting against smokers personally, I know the struggle of how hard is is to quit. The smoking ban stops me from smelling like a stinky ashtray when I go to my local bar now.

What have become super popular here are is what is call an "e cigarette". I see people using these everywhere, they produce no smoke, only water vapor. I have no problem with people using these devices because they don't any odor.

Anonymous (not verified)

May 28, 2011 - 13:17

Please ban smoking everywhere in Japan. Tobacco is the only product that kills most of its users and passive smoking is what I hate about going into a restaurant in Japan. Do not even sell cigarettes...Hmmm but the Japanese Finance dept owns half of Japan Tobacco. While the health dept promotes the evils of smoking, the Finace dept/ Japan tobacco keeps promoting the poison stick which kills / maims millions of people annually.

japa110

July 13, 2011 - 02:21

If demand is great enough other businesses will exercise their freedom of choice also and cater to non-smokers.

Anonymous (not verified)

August 18, 2011 - 23:58

Here in Japan it is more offensive to talk on the phone in a train than smoke in a playground while pushing your kid on the swing. That’s messed up. The Japanese are such polite people, until they smoke, it seems.

Yes, that’s a generalisation, but in my 10 years here, there has been little improvement. The streets are still covered in butts and it’s still near impossible to escape passive smoking when going out. Heck, smokers smoke NEXT TO no-smoking signs.

At stations, the signs have time limits, banning smoking ONLY during rush hour! Where I work, the restaurant staff downstairs smoke at the stair well, filling it with smoke and affecting myself and my clients. This nation has no real understanding about smoking. It is well and trully normalised.

There is a 'designated no smoking zone' near where I work, and you know what? It is covered in cigarette butts. Tonight, on my way home, 3 young men were smoking while sitting next a no smoking sign, on the undercover stairs up to the train station. They had no qualms about do so, in fact, when I said what was on the mind of probably all the irritated people around them, all the men said was 'excuse me', and continued smoking.

This is the problem. Smokers and rude and inconsiderate people have the run of the place here. None of them are challenged, and they abuse that fear of asserting one's self in that way which is so very Japanese.

So smokers just smoke wherever they want, and rules are made to apparently control that, yet there's nobody out there to uphold it, and certainly very little self regulation in the society. When people can be pricks to others and have an almost guarantee of not being challenged, what do you think they will do?

Anonymous (not verified)

September 4, 2011 - 14:42

I don't smoke and NEVER will~! I love it in Japan~! But Japan needs to ban smoking anywhere and everywhere for their health, life span, and reduce pollution to the country! It's a waste of time when you could be doing more productive things!!!!! It's hurting other non-smokers and the environment!!!!
Japan already has the radiation problem because of the enormous magnitude 9 earthquake in Tohoku on March 11th, 2011. And since they're not going to be using a miniature atomic bomb to destroy the radiation waves, it's probably going to take at least 30 yrs to a century to get rid of it "naturally"! TONS of food products and other things are contaminated and damaged because of it! There's going to be NOTHING that's safe to eat in Japan and lessen the life span! On top of that, there's already LOADS of homeless people in the Tohoku region! Japan also is STILL having LOADS of earthquakes, avalanches, volcanic eruptions, and other problems!

Get rid of all these problems and become an even more long life span healthy country Japan!

Ganbare Nippon!!!!!

Anonymous (not verified)

February 3, 2012 - 18:42

It is wrong for business owners (Pachinko, Izakaya, Restaurant) to think that Smoking Ban will affect their business. If it is nationwide, then all businesses will be on the same situation thus there will be no competition amongst establishments. One business can lose to the other only when the ban is not imposed nationwide.
See what happened HongKong, before the smoking ban, all the business owners complained about losing business but now, it's all normal. Smokers still come to the restaurants and spend less time sitting down to smoke thus giving more turnover of customers for the establishments.

Smoking ban is Great - We support it !!

Chris Keys (not verified)

May 2, 2013 - 20:41

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