世論 What Japan Thinks

Yet another positive noise that the Democratic Party of Japan have made since coming into power is the discussion of a smoking ban to prevent second-hand smoking, a topic that was the subject of this recent survey from iShare. Like many other of the DPJ’s proposals, however, this is a rather half-baked idea that doesn’t at the moment have any fines proposed for non-compliance, and a lack of joined-up government has seen talk of punative cigarette tax shelved.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of February 2010 411 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.5% of the sample were male, 28.7% in their twenties, 32.6% in their thirties, and 38.7% in their forties.

Quite frankly, I find the smoking rates hard to believe. The usual figures I hear quoted are a little over 30% of men and 10% of women, yet here we have 23% and 12%, yet 19% male quitters and an incredible 18% female quitters!

I think there’s only one restaurant that I frequent that makes no particular attempt to separate smokers; all the rest are either all non-smoking or at least make a decent attempt to keep the smokers at bay.

Research results

Q1A: Do you smoke? (Sample size=411)

	All	Male N=220	Female N=191
Frequently	13.9%	18.6%	8.4%
Occasionally	3.9%	4.1%	3.7%
Used to, but quit	18.5%	19.1%	17.8%
No, never	63.7%	58.2%	70.2%

Q1B: Do you smoke? (Sample size=411)

	All	Twenties N=118	Thirties N=134	Forties N=159
Frequently	13.9%	5.9%	12.7%	20.8%
Occasionally	3.9%	4.2%	3.7%	3.8%
Used to, but quit	18.5%	8.5%	20.1%	24.5%
No, never	63.7%	81.4%	63.4%	50.9%

Q2: Do you like the smell of cigarette smoke? (Sample size=411)

	All	Male N=220	Female N=191
Love it	1.2%	1.4%	1.0%
Like it	6.3%	8.2%	4.2%
Dislike it	27.7%	30.5%	24.6%
Hate it	64.7%	60.0%	70.2%

For some reason they didn’t break down the results by smoking frequency.

Q3: Do you encounter second-hand smoke in your daily life? (Sample size=411)

	All	Male N=220	Female N=191
Frequently	28.7%	32.3%	24.6%
Sometimes	59.4%	57.3%	61.8%
Never	11.9%	10.5%	13.6%

Q4: Have you ever felt the smell of smoke or otherwise felt that there was not a clear separation between sections when using a non-smoking section in a restaurant, etc? (Sample size=411)

	All	Male N=220	Female N=191
Yes	77.4%	73.6%	81.7%
No	22.6%	26.4%	18.3%

Even 61.4% of the the smokers have found the non-smoking sections ineffective!

Q5A: Currently, to prevent second-hand smoke, the government is recommending that workplaces, eating places, hotels, etc go basically non-smoking and only provide closed-off smoking areas to prevent leakage of smoke. Do you agree that workplaces, eating places, hotels, etc should go all non-smoking? (Sample size=411)

	All	Male N=220	Female N=191
Totally agree	56.4%	52.3%	61.3%
Agree to some extent	20.4%	20.5%	20.4%
Disagree to some extent	12.7%	12.7%	12.6%
Totally disagree	10.5%	14.5%	5.8%

Q5B: Currently, to prevent second-hand smoke, the government is recommending that workplaces, eating places, hotels, etc go basically non-smoking and only provide closed-off smoking areas to prevent leakage of smoke. Do you agree that workplaces, eating places, hotels, etc should go all non-smoking? (Sample size=411)

	Frequent smoker N=57	Infrequent smoker N=16	Ex-smoker N=76	Never smoked N=262
Totally agree	5.3%	31.3%	64.5%	66.8%
Agree to some extent	19.3%	18.8%	22.4%	20.2%
Disagree to some extent	24.6%	43.8%	11.8%	8.4%
Totally disagree	50.9%	6.3%	1.3%	4.6%