Let us eliminate TOBACCO from the world!
- Smoke Free Environment will bring profits-

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    Smoking violence in Japan is still extreme. Smoke haters cannot escape from smokes, if they wish in the country. Inconsiderable smokers smoke everywhere they want, if in smoke prohibited area, in walk road, in restaurants,.....
    More than forty years have passed since bad effect of tobacco to human being was announced by public organizations, still we have not yet terminated smoking habits and often see smoke violence or abuse in public. I hope that we could accelerate smoke reduction and public smoke violence. I stress that smoking habits are no longer necessary in this society and want to provide smokers any chance to quit smoking.
    Let us pursue smoke free society and enjoy comfortable life.

 I believe that tobacco should not exist in the society. Tobacco is said "Piles of harms, no profit" since dozens of years ago; however it is still widely sold everywhere in Japan. The biggest reasons why I believe tobacco is not necessary are:
- Harms are delivered not only to smokers but also to non-smokers.
- Tobacco brings no profit to society.
I will stress non positive effect of tobacco to economy in the different session.

Smoking habit is masochism. There is no doubt that tobacco is poisonous has been reported by WHO and other public organizations.
 Smoking activity in public area is violent as well as masochistic. Smoke diffuses everywhere and contaminates air. It is equivalent to put poison to air that people breeze. I have no other idea to express this activity than calling "smoking violence". I will define all smoking related harassment activities are smoking violence.
 Sorry to say, even though one is damaged by someone else, there is no way to recover damaged amount and restore right status without bringing civil action. One needs even another steps to punish one who caused damage. It requires considerable patience. Every loss by smoking violence is a part of such personal losses. Damages caused by smoking is not visible. In many cases, one who caused damages to other by smoking activity does not recognize violence hidden in the smoke. This lack of violence recognition extends the social damages and disturb problem solution.
Needless to say, people are not happy with the society that allows any evil. I want every person to understand violence of smoking and realize no smoke society.

 Tobacco business law specifies a company that can produce tobacco in Japan. Only JT can manufacture tobacco in the country. The law specifies that sales price must be approved by finance minister. Therefore, tobacco is not like other products that can be freely developed and sold.
 According to the public reference of JT in 2002, profit share of JT is 28.66%, of tobacco shop is 10% and remaining share is tax. Profit share of shop is more than 1/3 of share of manufacturer. It is amazingly high margin. Since tobacco is sold at regular price anywhere in Japan, a tobacco dealer does not have to compete with other dealers; however sales margin is thus high.
 On the other hand, other service providers like bars cannot charge for tobacco resale to customers. You might have seen that a person purchased a pack of cigarettes from a bar or a restaurant. Any bar or restaurant sells cigarettes at regular price. You might have seen that an employee of a snack bar went out to purchase a pack of cigarettes upon a guest's request. Even in such a case, the pack of cigarettes was exchanged with fixed amount of cash. It seems that such snack bar would not directly charge to a customer for the service, because tobacco business law dictates that tobacco must be sold at regular price. It is ridiculous; smoking pushes up air conditioning cost, ashtray cost, and soils the facility, however, the cost is not charged to smokers. The service is not "free"! Who bear the cost? Yes, non-smokers bear such additional costs for smokers, and also sacrifice own health to smoker's personal satisfaction.
 As described above, service providers cannot gain any profit from tobacco related services, but they continue providing tobacco related services. Do you think that providing smoking related services promote businesses? I might agree that some special shops like coffee shops gain profits from smoking related services. The special shops should be called "smoking salons"; however, I never use such smoking salons, because I am not willing to expose myself to polluted air. Though I cannot show specific number of such potential negative effect, we have to take such negative effect into account to evaluate tobacco's economic effect.
Let us tale a look at restaurant's case. It is often seen that some people smoke in the dining table, although others hate it. I really hate it and it is why I have been looking for nonsmoking restaurants in Tokyo. Should we suppose that allowing smoking behavior in a restaurant promotes the sales of the restaurant? My answer is obviously "no." The reason is that restaurants are places to eat and people have to eat to keep body regardless of smoking. If, like US situation, all the restaurants do not allow smoking in the dining table, people cannot choose smoking restaurants. In this case, total sales will not change. I guess the reason why restaurants allow smoking in the dining table is that owners hate smokers' claims. Some smokers yell for smoking everywhere regardless of situation. Some smokers dare to smoke, even though smoking is prohibited. I think that owners of restaurants hate such violence by unsophisticated smokers. I say that there is no evidence that providing smoking services outside of smoking salons brings profit.


Why tobacco related services do not bring profit? - The reason is that all the profits are enclosed to tobacco and its related industries. Winners of this tobacco sales match are JT, public tobacco dealers and tobacco farmers. Although there are some others which takes profit through tobacco sales - transportation business, vending machine dealers, lighter manufacturers, and so on, still their profit is minor compared with tobacco and related industries'.

Although it is thus clear that tobacco related services do not bring profit, most people cannot recognize this fact. Smokers are controlled to contribute to tobacco industries. Smokers just may not want to agree to it, because it means they are losers.

People say tobacco has global economic effect - I do not believe this myth. I do not stress ,as frequently said, that social loss is higher than profit. I suspect that negative economic effect excluding social loss is higher than positive effect.
Generally speaking, economic effect includes all related profits  that results from tobacco sales and manufacturing. For instance, automobile manufacturing directly brings profits to steel ,machine, ceramic, chemical, and so on.  It also indirectly brings profit to refinery, traffic systems construction, travel, and so on. It means that economic effect should include global profit in the society.
On the other hand, tobacco businesses completely differ from above case. A pack of cigarettes consists of only a little bit general materials, i.e. paper, plastic film and filter, in addition to tobacco martial. How can it bring profit to society?

On the other hand, tobacco brings considerable amount of economic losses. Losses of life, health are well known effects. In addition to such losses, tobacco pushes up costs, like air conditioning, ashtray, cleaning, and so on. Increasing air conditioning cost  means that increasing carbon dioxide generation. These social cost increase are borne not only by smokers and tobacco industries but also by all the people. It is not fair.

Tobacco related services are nominally "free". Restaurants, bars, shopping malls do not charge for smoking activities although they bear costs for ashtrays cleanings, additional electricity, etc. These costs are borne by all the users. This unfair custom still exists. This should be noted by all the people.
The reason why this unfair system exists is that smokers are often violent: too much claim, scream, disturb business, if smoking is prohibited and finally ignore regulation.

The first thing to do is to terminate this unfair habit and begin charging for smoking activity.

The first cause of fire is "arson" and the second cause is tobacco in Japan. This is well known fact.
Some people and I assume Arson is related to smoking.

Let's think about how to set on fire:

Q1:    What is the source of fire?
A1:     Lighter or match. Other object may be applicable, but difficult to handle.

Q2:    Who have match or lighter?
A2:    Smokers or arsonists.

Q3:    Do you often need match or lighter?
A3:    Not at all. They are not necessary for general life.

Q4:    Why can arsonists easily get match or lighter?
A4:    Because they are soled for smokers.

I have never seen this analysis. I suppose that it is intentionally concealed by tobacco industry.
Let's think about the followings:

Q1:    Do smokers smoke while driving?
A1:    I think so. I saw a lot of smoking drivers.

Q2:    Is it possible to light a cigarette while concentrating on driving?
A2:    It needs seconds to hand a cigarette and light it.

Smoking itself is abuse as already noted.
Moreover, it is often reported parents made their that children hurt with cigarettes. Why did they use cigarettes to abuse children? Because there were cigarettes and it was easy method to abuse. Fundamental cause of abuse is violent nature or lack of consideration.  This should not happen.
Smoker's rate of abusers is not published. This research should be done by police department.

Smoking by minority is obvious violation of law, and it is often the beginning of criminal.
We sometimes see interview with criminals on TV program. Every time I saw such program, they speak while smoking.

It is prohibited for minorities to smoke or just to purchase tobacco. And also it is prohibited to sell cigarettes to minorities. On the other hand, minorities can easily purchase cigarettes from vending machine. Vending machines promote minorities' smoking activities, but vending machines exist everywhere in Japan.
The reason why cigarette vending machines exist is that tobacco industry wants to sell cigarettes to minorities. Increasing smoking rate of minorities directly pushes up their sales and indirectly pushes up adults' smoking rate. They sell their soul to devil for their profit.

Tobacco makes smokers selfish and let them lose consideration.

This is an example:
Chiyoda-city of Tokyo prohibited smoking while walking around specified area in 2002. This was often discussed in TV programs. I saw that one commentator told that it was not appropriate because he brings portable ashtray, in a TV program. Other people in the same program seemed amazed, because the regulation's point was to stop nuisance by smoke. This person was well known writer and a member of committee to improve road construction budgeting  organization. Even this kind of "intelligent" person insisted selfish opinion to smoke everywhere he wanted.

This is another episode in a web page:
Certain person was hurt by his grandfather's tobacco when he was a child. He was scolded by his grandfather because the infant came close to his tobacco. He suffered from psychological trauma after this incident.

Smokers always give optimistic evaluation to smoking damages. I believe that tobacco spoils human being's conscience.

Smokers are sometimes already drug addicts.  You are already nicotine addict, if you cannot stay without smoking for hours. This is the reason why smokers cannot stop smoking. You need medical care or strong will to stop smoking. I suggest the following first of all:

1) Throw away all the cigarettes and lighters. If you have big inventory, this will work more effectively. If you think that you will quit smoking after consuming your inventories, you cannot quit smoking for ever.

2) Do not think about smoking. Try forgetting tobacco. Leave from there, if you find cigarettes. Desire for cigarettes will let you want to smoke more and more.

3) Eat delicious foods. Once you do not have to spend money for cigarettes, you have more budget. Letting you away from smokes will make you sensitive to taste and flavor.

If you begin thinking that smoke stinks, your smoke free trial is successful.
Congratulations!

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