Plain packs, plain uncomfortable

A subcommittee of the Fiscal System Council, an advisory panel to Japan’s Finance Minister, this week recommended against requiring graphic health warnings on cigarettes, according to an Asahi Shimbun story relayed by the TMA.

The subcommittee said that images of black lungs and other ill effects of smoking could be ‘unnerving’.

It suggested instead that existing textual warnings should be supplemented with additional text-only messages warning against underage smoking.

“It is necessary not to cause excessive discomfort,” one member said during the discussion on the graphic warnings proposal.

A recent survey by the National Cancer Center in Tokyo found that 46 percent of smokers polled supported graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging, while 21 percent opposed them.

Smokers accounted for 19.6 percent of the country’s adult population in 2014, down from 26.4 percent in 2004.