[Intl-tobacco] Japan cigarette warnings to draw back on politeness

[Robert Weissman]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,5928168,00.html

The Australian

Japan cigarette warnings to draw back on politeness
 By Stephen Lunn, Tokyo correspondent
 03feb03

 Foreign Correspondence

 IN Australia, where "Smoking Kills", the World Health Organisation
tells us that 27 per cent of men smoke. In Japan,
 where half the male population lights up, cigarette packets offer this
tepid warning: "Please remember to follow
 good smoking manners. As smoking might injure your health, please be
careful not to overdo it."

 Despite Big Tobacco's admission that a link exists between cigarettes
and cancer, Japan's government-imposed
 health warning hasn't changed for more than 12 years.

 The silence is easily explained: Japan Tobacco, the world's third-
biggest cigarette producer, is 67 per cent
 government-owned.

 JT's success shows up in the revenues it contributes to government
coffers: 2.3 trillion yen ($34 billion) a year.
 Cigarettes are extraordinarily cheap in Japan. A packet of 20 costs
Y250 ($4) in a country where a glass of beer in
 a pub routinely sells for the equivalent of $12. Even chemists stock cigar=
ettes.

 The Tobacco Business Law, in force since the early 1900s, requires that
the Government own more than 50 per
 cent of JT in perpetuity and to "promote the healthy development of the
tobacco industry and ensure stable
 revenue in the interest of a sound national economy".

 It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the proportion of male smokers
in Japan =96 49 per cent =96 is the highest in the
 industrialised world. (A raft of social rather than health factors,
including a concern about being seen as too
 independent, keeps the number of female smokers down to around 14 per cent=
.)

 Finally this month, under pressure from WHO, the Finance Ministry,
which runs JT, announced it was considering
 introducing stricter health warnings on cigarette packets to bring it
into line with the stern messages in other
 developed countries. (Canada's "Smoking makes you impotent" is among
the sternest.)

 The response, announced on the same day WHO released a new draft
anti-smoking treaty requiring clear labelling
 on cigarette packets linking smoking to its health consequences,
remains a touch half-hearted. The Finance
 Ministry said it would commission a working group in the next few
months to begin discussing possible revisions to
 the wording of the current warning.

 To be fair, the new look at the health warning is the second concession
the Japanese government has made on
 cigarette consumption in a month. After years of resistance (and the
financing of myriad scientific studies disputing
 the link between tobacco consumption and cancer), it agreed earlier
this month to begin phasing out the nation's
 630,000 cigarette-vending machines, which are blamed for making it too
easy for teenagers to buy cigarettes.

 Whether or not this will help is debatable. Not one conviction has ever
been recorded against a vendor under
 Japan's decade-old laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors.

 The only efforts to restrict smoking are cosmetic at best, and have
little to do with the health hazard. Tokyo's
 Chiyoda local government ward has, for example, banned smoking on some
public streets to reduce the litter
 problem and the incidence of people's clothes being burnt by the ash of
careless smokers passing by. Forget the
 fact that since the mid-90s lung cancer has succeeded stomach cancer as
Japan's No 1 killer. It's okay to smoke;
 just don't litter.

 Meanwhile, cigarette advertising, much of it appealing to the young,
continues to go unchecked. Many of the
 nation's key decision-makers on advertising policy are smokers themselves.

 The Health Ministry, along with other powerful bureaucracies, are
littered with cigarette-vending machines. Until
 recently, politicians puffed away in parliament. Only minor concessions
have been made to non-smokers in the
 workplace.

 Japan has a public holiday in January to celebrate the "coming of age"
of 20-year-olds, and their new rights to vote
 and to drink and smoke legally.

 This year an influential Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun urged in
an editorial that hundreds of thousands
 of young people mark the day by renouncing smoking.

 "What should you do to establish a free, fair, caring society in which
independent-minded people help one
 another? Perhaps avoiding smoking should be first on the list," the
Asahi said. Not if the Government can help it.