Japan activists fume over free smokes for elderly (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

 Japan activists fume over free smokes for elderly
 04:49 a.m. Sep 14, 1999 Eastern

 TOKYO, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Cigarette maker Japan Tobacco had antismoking
 activists gasping on Tuesday over its plan to give millions of cigarettes
to nursing
 homes around the country.

 ``This is practically telling people to hurry up and die,'' said Bungaku
Watanabe,
 head of the Tobacco Problems Information Centre. ``It's almost the same as
 pushing them in front of a train.''

 But Japan Tobacco spokesman Seiichi Hayashida called the free smokes, to
mark
 Respect for the Aged day on Wednesday, ``a way for us to make a
contribution
 to society.''

The practice dates from 1965, when the firm was a government-run monopoly.
Now privatised, it still has the sole  right to produce tobacco in Japan and
an 80 percent market share.

 Hayashida said that while the number of cigarettes to be distributed this
year is undecided, in 1998 JT passed out around 15 million cigarettes to
some 5,000  nursing homes.

Despite recent moves to ban smoking in some public places, Japan's
anti-smoking zeal has lagged behind that of most other industrialised
countries.

 ((Elaine Lies, Tokyo Newsroom +81-3 3432 8018