Introducing Tobacco Concessions in Japan
There is a journal called “Smoking Science” in Japan, an academic journal published by Smoking Research Foundation.
Smoking Research Foundation is funded mostly by Japan Tobacco inc. “JT”, with much of the money donated to the foundation, it’s still thought to come from JT.
They subsidize into pharmaceutical research in favor of smoking. They publish the results of these research studies on the journal “Smoking Science”.
On average, they provide about 2.3 million yen per study. For example, the study published on the journal “Smoking Science” concludes that nicotine is mildly addictive, smoking and chronic Doubts about the link to inflammation, the association between the immunosuppressive effects of smoking and immune diseases.
The fact that Tobacco Industry has been funding academia and other organizations has long been noted.
In 2000, the World Health Organization released the report by an expert committee on Tobacco Industry, that become revealed that Tobacco Industry is obstructing against tobacco control. The report states that Tobacco Industry’s tactics to undercut tobacco control efforts was highly dependent on many scientists with shady financial ties to the Tobacco Industry, they wrote It is.
JT’s position on smoking is that “To smoke or not to smoke is only a matter of personal judgment, and the smoker are free to enjoy cigarettes”. In addition, on the growing national tobacco control efforts in Japan, JT’s argument has consistently been to improve smokers’ manners and The idea is that it’s a smoke separation consultancy.
The Japanese government (finance minister) holds 33.35% of stock of JT. Japanese tobacco industry is dominated by JT, and JT is a powerful descendant of the bureaucracy at the Ministry of Finance.
Tobacco Industry also makes political donations to Japanese lawmakers.There are the presence of legislators affected by the tobacco industry, and existing lawmakers in parliament, bureaucracy in “Kasumigaseki” and Tobacco Industry, an excessive protection for domestic leaf tobacco farmers.
I like a movie “The Insider” 1999. The film portrays a tobacco company whistle-blower (Russell Crowe), accused by him, a TV producer (Al Pacino) of a news show who tries to reports on Tobacco Industry’s injustices. A whistle-blower suffers from sabotage from Tobacco Industry.
Unfortunately, there is no whistle-blower like him from JT. I think Japanese too tolerant of Tobacco Industry.
