The passage of a bill to revise the Health Promotion Law can be appreciated to some degree as a step forward for measures against passive smoking in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2020.
 

On the World Health Organization’s passive smoking classification scale, Japan’s level was four, the lowest. The revision of the law moves Japan up just one level on the scale.
 

Passive smoking, or breathing in other people’s cigarette smoke, is believed to be damaging to health.
 

According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, inhaling secondhand smoke increases the risk of developing strokes and lung cancer by 30 percent.
 

However, the content of the revision is a setback compared to the ministry’s initial draft of the bill. The health ministry had planned in the draft that smoking would be allowed as an exception in bars and Japanese-style pubs with a shop floor area of 30 square meters or less. The restaurant and bar businesses protested, saying that the planned regulations were too strict.
 

Even among lawmakers of the Liberal Democratic Party, opinions were divided over the planned regulations. Finally, they agreed on relatively moderate content for the revision, exempting existing small establishments with total customer seating space of 100 square meters or less.
 

Some experts have criticized the revision as insufficient compared to regulations implemented in recent Olympic and Paralympic host cities, where indoor smoking was prohibited. For this reason, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly enacted in June an ordinance, prior to the move of the central government, to strengthen measures against passive smoking that are stricter than the revision of the national law.
 

It is likely that the central government will be urged to consider further strengthening measures against passive smoking in addition to effectively implementing the revision.  


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