Cigarette prices may be doubled

Thursday 07th August, 06:20 AM JST

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kimigano at 02:16 PM JST - 7th August

This means I have to smoke twice as much.
Bovinus at 02:40 PM JST - 7th August

There's a limit where people look at how much money they're spending on cigarettes and so 'that's enough'. For some people the limit is somewhere between the present 300 yen and the potential 600 yen. These people will try to quit.

As it is, a pack a day smoker will spend 109 500 yen a year. Double it to 219 000 yen and lots of people are going to be thinking twice.

The government increased tax in Australia and now very few Aussies smoke. Raising tax works.
ChimpsAhead at 03:26 PM JST - 7th August

The Japanese govt always talks about hiking the cigarette prices, but only raises my about 20-30 Yen a time, people don`t notice any differnce .

Double the price and spend the extra tax on therapsit and mental health clinics to help the growing band of mentally folks.
Hughgarse at 03:54 PM JST - 7th August

itll go up by 10 or 20 yen if theyre lucky
franz75 at 04:15 PM JST - 7th August

No problem with banning the cigarettes in public places espacially trains. I see more vending machines vandalized and Yakuzas having new businesses in the future.
DeepAir65 at 04:54 PM JST - 7th August

bring it on - no complaints from me!
presto345 at 05:07 PM JST - 7th August

No doubt the prices will be doubled, eventually. See what cigarettes cost in the EU for comparison: http://www.the-tma.org.uk/page.aspx?page_id=35 Cheapest in the least developed countries, clearly.
Kwaabish at 09:37 PM JST - 7th August

So smoking will, in the near future, become a vice for the affluent. And the duty-free sales in flights from China will skyrocket.
Bovinus at 10:45 PM JST - 7th August

"So smoking will, in the near future, become a vice for the affluent."

So let the rich kill themselves slowly in their own homes. Also, there aren't that many rich people (wealth distribution is like a pyramid). Thirdly, it's usually the poor that smoke. There is a direct correlation between education and smoking rates.

Duty-free sales in flights from China make up a tiny (negligible) part of the market.
Eizenhauer at 12:43 AM JST - 8th August

This would have been a great news if the gained profits in tax is being spent on some useful projects, say tackling global warming or simply investing money back into environment (forests, rivers, lakes, ocean)... So many nice ways to redeem ourselves for being such pests on this planet... But unfortunately, this is only a dream, no government would do such thing as waste money on environmental problems. Just look how "they" shut down the guy from osaka who presented to the world a car that runs on water, he was all over the news and suddenly disappeared from the scene (how could government charge high taxes on water that is abundant everywhere).
kimigano at 03:50 AM JST - 8th August

Eizenhauer, the money will be kicked back to us in the Ministry of Finance. We will need to build new special funds in order to purge the old ones as we convince the public that pork is gone.
Zolt at 12:25 PM JST - 8th August

Great! I hope that will make my girlfriend kick the habit where nothing else succeeded!
flammenwerfer at 12:41 PM JST - 8th August

finally some good news from the "lawmakers". Use the proceeds from the tax on the underfuned health system, especially in areas outside the main centres. Rack up the tax to a 1000yen or more.
hairforest at 01:03 PM JST - 10th August

How can so many people be so confused and actually think that the government would use a tax, any tax, to benefit society? What planet are these people living on?

It is the purpose of government, any govenment, to use any problem to expand the government and line their coiffers. It doesn't matter whether it is a so-called Democracy, Republic, Communist state, or even Fascism.

The idea that the criminals and useless fat cats in the government are here to help us defies history and common sense. This is just another excuse to increase taxes.

Open your eyes.
JoiceRojo at 11:03 PM JST - 11th August

Decriminalizing marijuana and giving people something to smoke that actually does something pleasurable - that has had an EXTREMELY significant effect.

but... marijuana kills your neurons, whereas tobacco kills your lungs. It is not a solution.

But, increasing the price of a cigarrette it does have effect, for those smokers that have more flexibility in their consumption, they reduce the amount of cigarrette and also some of them can actually quit smoking. It takes such a long period of time that you don't notice.

Example: once a upon a time there were in my country Lucky Strike cigarrettes without filters. IT was extremely annoying for second hand smokers and also for the smoker, because it was very strong. Since laws passed about prohibiting smoking in interurban buses, public places and the scorn of the rest of the people for the annoyance of this particular cigarrette (comparable with Marlboro) the consumption of the cigarrette decreased..., that coupled with the extra expenditure in buying filters, increasing taxes and also expending more in clothing, air fresheners and so on it made decrease (a little) this cigarrette.