Burning the Cigarette at Both Ends
As one Tokyo ministry launches antismoking efforts, another undercuts them
in order to protect stake in tobacco industry.

By SONNI EFRON, Times Staff Writer

TOKYOFor the first time ever, the Japanese government is expected this
summer to formally acknowledge that smoking is a direct cause of illness.
The Ministry of Health has published such warnings under its own
authority in the past. However, its views on the dangers of cigarettes have
never been ratified by the Cabinet as official policy in a land where 58%
of men and 14% of women are smokers.
Japanese antismoking activists say that is because of opposition
within the government from the mighty Ministry of Finance, which collects
$16 billion in revenue each year from cigarette sales and has traditionally
shunned stiff regulation of the tobacco industry.
This Junethree decades after the U.S. surgeon general concluded that
smoking is a principal cause of lung cancerthe Japanese Ministry of
Health plans to submit for Cabinet approval a white paper on health and
safety, stating that smoking causes disease and warning about the dangers
of secondhand smoke.
"It could be a turning point," said Makoto Kumaki, spokesman for the
Ministry of Health.
But Japanese media report that a bureaucratic battle is brewing
between the guardians of health and the mandarins of finance.
Ordinarily, the Ministry of Finance, which has vast powers over the
budgets of other government agencies, would be expected to prevail. But the
Japanese antismoking movement is gaining ground, public attitudes toward
smoking are toughening, and the Ministry of Health is expected to
triumphat least on the policy report, if not on stricter regulations.
Officials at both ministries denied that a feud exists. Kumaki said a
draft of the report has been circulated to the other ministries for
comment, and he acknowledged that its final wording is still "to be
negotiated."
"We must be more outspoken about the dangers of smoking," said Kumaki,
who works in a Ministry of Health office where the air was thick with
cigarette smoke on a recent morning. "We must especially protect pregnant
women and minors, and talk about the problem of passive smokingthat it is
unpleasant for people who do not smoke, and not just unpleasant but may
also have a negative effect on health."
Akira Ono of the Finance Ministry's Tobacco and Salt Department said
his ministry recognizes that smoking is a "risk factor" for disease but
rejects a specific link between smoking and lung cancer or heart disease in
any individual, because diet, lifestyle, occupation and environment also
play roles in those illnesses.
Although Japan's stateowned tobacco monopoly was broken up in 1985,
the government still owns twothirds of its successor, Japan Tobacco, which
is regulated by the Finance Ministry.
"The government and the tobacco industry are virtually one and the
same," wrote Mark A. Levin of the University of Hawaii law school in a
study of Japanese tobacco regulation. "The Japanese government promotes
tobacco consumption and industry interests, while restraining action
addressing tobacco and health."
Japanese restrictions on the tobacco industry are featherweight by
U.S. standards.
Cigarette advertising is legal, although the industry advertises on
television only between 10:54 p.m. and 5 a.m.
* * *
The Ministry of Health has talked about banning sales from vending
machines, which account for 40% of cigarette sales and are blamed for a
surge in underage smoking, but has taken no action except for a nonbinding
request that the industry turn off the machines overnight. And the warning
labels on Japanese cigarette packages inform smokers that "it is feared
that smoking could damage your health," a far cry from the dire warnings on
U.S. labels.
Official pronouncements have been equally tepid. A 1988 report by the
Ministry of Health, for example, declared: "Tobacco is a popular item, but
research shows it has various effects on health and so there is a need to
give citizens sufficient information about its harm and to work to prevent
minors from smoking."
"The Finance Ministry is the obstacle," said Bungaku Watanabe, vice
president of the Group to Establish Nonsmokers' Rights. Watanabe said he
would welcome tougher antismoking talk from the governmentbut is not
expecting regulatory action soon.
* * *

Habit Forming
The smoking habit has made major inroads among Japan's young adults.
Of those in their 20s, 60.9% of men and 16.9% of women smoke higher rates
than among any other 10year age span.
Of male smokers ages 2029:
6% Smoke more than 2 packs a day
65% 12 packs a day
29% Less than 1 pack a day
* * *
Of female smokers ages 2029:
1% Smoke more than 2 packs a day
35% 12 packs a day
64% Less than 1 pack a day

Source: Japanese Ministry of Health

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