世論 What Japan Thinks

Japan is still very much a smoker’s paradise despite being outnumbered by non-smokers, as this survey from Nifty into smoking revealed.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 30th of January 2014 5,098 members of the Nifty monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. No further demographics were given.

You can even get tobacco tea from a vending machine in Japan:

In Q6, banning smoking on pavements (sidewalks for my American readers) illustrates the strength of JT, Japan Tobacco, and its advertising, which has convinced the public that despite Q5 showing that most people are aware of the health issues, impoliteness and the risk of poking children in the eye outweighs taking said children into a smoky cafe and puffing away; as many a foreigner says, Japan must be the only country where it is often easier to smoke inside than outside. Next, banning smoking in bullet trains would be low-priority for me, as on the main Tokyo-Osaka run all the newer trains are non-smoking, but have a smoking room, which I actually think is worse. With a distinct smoking car, it is easy to avoid; with a room, if you happen to get a seat nearby and beside a smoker, their fumes after their visits will be pretty obnoxious.

Where I’d like to see smoking banned is parliament; then I will know that the government is really serious about tackling the issue.
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goo Research recently released the results of a survey into smoking and health, a survey that was conducted last December.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 13th of December 2010 2,152 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 19.6% in their twenties, 19.9% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.4% aged sixty or older.

About the only good news to come from the recent disaster is that many tobacco growers and factories have been knocked out, so a good number of brands are no longer available, and others are on short supply; indeed today I noticed in a convenience store that although the signs requesting people limit themselves to purchasing two bottles of water had disappeared, there was now a sign for only one packet of cigarettes per person.
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The latest company to jump into the fray by covering the tobacco tax hike and quitting smoking were DIMSDRIVE Research.

Demographics

Between the 6th and 21st of October 2010 5,170 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.0% of the sample were female, 14.2% in their twenties, 36.8% in their thirties, 33.8% in their forties, 13.3% in their fifties, and 1.9% aged sixty or older.

In Q2SQ2, how much cheaper a pack people switched to, the average was over 100 yen a pack; given the tax rise was about 100 yen, they cancel themselves out, but as far as I am aware almost brands are within 40 or 50 yen of each other, so I don’t really know how people managed to save over 100 yen, unless they were talking about per case of 200 or some other bulk-buying.

At two of my favourite restaurants the number of smokers has dropped to either none or just one group recently, although I don’t know how much that has to do with the rise in duty.
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After looking at if people who quit stayed smoke-free due to the recent massive tax hike, here we have iShare looking at the overall population to see who quit smoking due to the price rise. As most people predicted, the long-overdue price rise wasn’t matched by a similar reduction in smoking rates.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 8th of November 2010 661 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.1% of the sample were male, 25.6% in their twenties, 33.4% in their thirties, and 41.0% in their forties.

One slight problem with the data here is that the smoking population at 21.3% of men and 8.3% of women is about half of the usually-accepted figures, although I don’t know why this sample would differ from the general population.
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With the rise in cigarette prices of approximately 100 yen per pack of twenty, adding roughly a third onto the price of the average brand, many smokers took this as an opportunity to quit. This recent survey from Macromill Research doesn’t look at what percentage quit, but instead focuses on how the quitters are coping.

Demographics

Over the 1st and 2nd of November 2010 500 members of the Macromill monitor group who had resolved to stop smoking following the tobacco price rise in October completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 68.4% were male, 12.8% in their twenties, 33.2% in their thirties, 31.8% in their forties, and 22.2% aged fifty or older.

I suppose it’s a good sign that at least some people are quitting, although looking at Q1 and from tales from smokers, relapses can happen at unexpected times, so after a month free from smoking one cannot really say one has kicked the habit. Furthermore, with the end of year party season coming up, thus placing the quitters around people smoking and around drink, the second and third greatest temptations according to Q3SQ1, the risk of relapse will be pretty high, I fear.
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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.
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After mentioning in a survey earlier this week about how smoking was my second-favourite survey topic, along comes this survey from DMSDRIVE Research Inc on my favourite topic in Japan, tooth care, in particular electric toothbrushes. As a bonus, this survey also touches on the use of this equipment by smokers.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 27th of August 2008 9,029 memebers of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 51.6% of the sample were female, 1.2% in their teens, 13.4% in their twenties, 33.8% in their thirties, 29.9% in their forties, 14.9% in their fifties, and 6.8% aged sixty or older. As a bonus statistic, 27.2% were current smokers, 19.3% ex-smokers, and 53.5% had never smoked.

Note that Sunstar make cheap-and-cheerful battery-operated toothbrushes that they sell alongside their manual counterparts in almost all pharmacies and supermarkets, where as all the other manufacturers make proper brushes.

I have a Braun Oral-B that I bought with points from a credit card, but I only use it at the weekends as cleaning and drying after every use during the week is too much bother!
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Following up, in a way, on Saturday’s look at the taspo card, let’s look at smoking in Japan, according to a survey conducted by Central Research Services, Inc.

Demographics

2,000 people aged twenty or over were randomly selected to take part in this survey. 1,328 people of those selected took part in face-to-face interviews between the 6th and 9th of June 2008. Further demographic information was not provided. This was the 22nd time the survey has been conducted; the previous ones were in 1978, 1983, and every year since 1987.

Notice in Q1 there has been a slight rise in smoking rates. Unfortunately no historical information is provided for the demographic breakdown, so it’s difficult to see where the rise is coming from – is it more new smokers, or less people quitting? Is the problem under-age smokers getting addicted, or adults choosing to start?

Q4, giving the numbers bothered by smoking, is a bit difficult to interpret, as both smokers and non-smokers answered.
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[part 1] [part 2]

Following on from my earlier post regarding a survey on smoking by goo Research, I now present a translation of a related opinion poll from DIMSDRIVE Research on smoking manners. In mid-June they interviewed 8,273 people from their internet monitor group. 56.8% of the sample was female, 1.2% in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 36.2% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 4.3% aged sixty or over; average age was 42.2 years old for men, 36.6 years old for women. As further demographic information they also published the occupations of the sample; 2.1% were company director level, 37.3% were ordinary full-time employees, 6.3% self-employed, 11.9% in part-time or casual labour, 3.2% worked for local or national government, 2.4% were freelancers, 24.5% housewives, 3.6% students, 1.0% retired, 4.8% unemployed, and 2.9% in others jobs.

This part of the survey focuses on manners; one of the many things that annoys me is how Japan Tobacco get around the ban on advertising smoking products by instead having a smoking manners campaign instead; be sure to check out the full gallery there! I think any resident of Japan would tell you that it seems that far less than the percentages mentioned in Q8, for instance, actually carry out these points of etiquette. I’m also very suprised by throwing away cigarette ends being seen as bad manners by many more non-smokers than lighting up in non-smoking areas!
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[part 1] [part 2]

Following on from my earlier post regarding a survey on smoking by goo Research, I now present a translation of a related opinion poll from DIMSDRIVE Research on smoking manners. In mid-June they interviewed 8,273 people from their internet monitor group. 56.8% of the sample was female, 1.2% in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 36.2% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 4.3% aged sixty or over; average age was 42.2 years old for men, 36.6 years old for women. As further demographic information they also published the occupations of the sample; 2.1% were company director level, 37.3% were ordinary full-time employees, 6.3% self-employed, 11.9% in part-time or casual labour, 3.2% worked for local or national government, 2.4% were freelancers, 24.5% housewives, 3.6% students, 1.0% retired, 4.8% unemployed, and 2.9% in others jobs.

One important thing to note when reading these figures is that men tend to be much more likely (almost twice as likely) to smoke, and tend to smoke more, so be wary of quoting these figures directly. If you are interested in that breakdown, either refer to the original survey or ask me and I’ll do a translation of every last statistic.
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