Tobacco control policy is regarded as fascism in Japan

doi:10.1136/bmj.323.7316.810

BMJ 2001;323:810 ( 6 October )

Letters

Tobacco control policy is regarded as fascism in Japan

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Smoking rates among adults in Japan are among the highest in the world, at 52.8% in men and 13.4% in women in 1998.The Japanese government does not have an effective antismokingpolicy, and this has led to a steady increase in deaths causedby lung cancer and in smoking rates among younger women and children.^1-3

Each local government has started to tackle tobacco topics individually. In June this year the government of Shiga prefectureheld an open forum against tobacco, at which the branch managerof Japan Tobacco made a speech denouncing the tobacco controlplan as fascism. Later the comment was carried on several majortelevision networks and in newspapers withoutcensure.

Mainichi, one of the main daily newspapers in Japan, recently criticised the stop-smoking policy of Itami City as fascism.⁴The city government has announced that it wishes to lower smokingrates to zero . . . [Full text of this article]