Report names and shames countries cozy with Big Tobacco

Is anyone surprised at Japans low ranking.

The Japanese government owns just over a third of Japan Tobacco, a company which in turn controls 60% of Japans Tobacco market.

Japan low rankin doesn't surprise me. I still have to confront smokers at the where my children are playing because they come there, sit close to children, pull out their cigarettes, and try to start smoking.

agree with you both. what a joke

The US is on this list because most people think only of the biggest states. But there are 50 states and the smoking laws in many states are horrible.

Japan shouldn't pay too much attention to such reports.

Foreigners don't dictate what is right and wrong in the world.

Just one of many views.

"The tobacco industry has a well-documented history of deception and of capitalising on humanitarian crises, and it is using the pandemic to attempt to improve its deteriorating public image," commented Adriana Blanco Marquizo, head of the secretariat for the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Nonsensical statement.  How exactly?  Advertising that smoking stops covid?  Typical evidence free nonsense spouted by WH officials.

Jt is the worlds leading Tobacco company not only in Japan and they keep buying out competitors. While they retreat a bit in Japan on in-face promotions they make up for it in developing nations.

tobacco companies will not take any initiative in advertising/ marketing reductions unless forced by law.

and I smoke, cigars, about 2 a week

You’d better stop escalating soon that war against us smokers. If you lose our financial and intellectual contributions you are much faster dying than by acquiring any health issues that might stem from tobacco use. And you don’t want that!

You’d better stop escalating soon that war against us smokers. If you lose our financial and intellectual contributions you are much faster dying than by acquiring any health issues that might stem from tobacco use. And you don’t want that!

Oh my Gosh do you really think that smokers can "go Galt" and ruin the healthy-breathing world?

Go for it.

bakakuma:

Foreigners don't dictate what is right and wrong in the world.

I have no intention of dictating what is right or wrong in Japan. If smokers want to get lung cancer, then it 's no skin off my back. Go for it. Doesn't matter how much the tobacco industry advertises - I will never buy their products, including their beverages.

Nonsensical statement. How exactly? Advertising that smoking stops covid?

By getting governments to deem cigarettes an essential item during lockdown. Mind games.

 If you lose our financial and intellectual contributions you are much faster dying than by acquiring any health issues that might stem from tobacco use

Tobacco use killed both my parents and my brother, all well before they were old enough to claim their old age pension. You know what you can do with your financial and intellectual contributions?

People should have the choice to smoke

No, they shouldn't. Their lifestyle choice results in everybody else having to pay for their cancer treatment.

PlasticMonkey - do alcohol, high sodium or high fat foods also fall into your thoughts on what should be permitted or not?

You could probably add skateboarding (everyone I skated with as a kid broke a bone at sometime) and many other known dangerous activities.

I don't smoke but I don't begrudge anyone who does (even if my tax money goes to their potential health issues at some point).

We should all be free to 'choose our own poison'. If you want to kill yourself with cigarettes, just go ahead - BUT leave others out of it!!!

The biggest objection to smoking is that it often forces others to co-smoke. Secondhand smoke is dangerous!

Smoking in the car when non-smokers (especially children) are present is selfish and cruel.

Smoke leaves traces, including nicotine and tar stains, on your skin, teeth, clothes, carpets, curtains, even wallpaper. Yuk!!

Have you ever worked in a bar and had to clean out dozens of ashtrays filled with dog-ends, cigar stubs, ash ...? It was the task I hated most when I worked in a pub.

Cold smoke stinks. Kissing a smoker is like kissing an ashtray.

Agreed, having to leave a restaurant or pub in order to smoke (as in some countries in Europe) is unfair on the poor addicts. They have to sit outside in the cold, perhaps wet, night air to get their fix.

I really object to someone's smoke wafting over my food and drink!!

I started smoking (a pipe) when I was 17. I stopped - cold turkey - when I was 32, saying to myself "It's unhygienic, expensive, anti-social and possibly fatal."

Imagine a world where governments didn’t advocate selling poison for human consumption?