2 posts tagged “cigarette”

There's this small Irish pub near Roppongi Hills that's non-smoking. It's just a small joint, owned- as I understand- by a bunch of guys who used to be working for another Ex-Investment Bank used to be stationed up in Roppongi Hills. It's so cool. Nothing special if you really think about it, but an Irish pub that's completely non-smoking environment, is just great as far as I'm concerned.

I feel strongly against smoking so this is not really my concern, but tobacco industry in Japan is finally going to do something about all those cig vending machine, in very strange way; they are going to introduce this card they call "Taspo" (or something like that; see, I really wasn't paying attention) which a Japanese citizen over 20 can acquire, with which you can activate the vending machine so you can do the usual paying the money and puffing away ritual.

The reason why I'm writing this here is that, from what I read, I'm not sure if they take into consideration that some foreign residents in Japan and a part of visitors/tourists to this country do smoke, and whether this stupid card could be issued to such persons. So if you happen to be a smoker and coming to Japan expecting to puff away on our cheaper cigs (I hear it's just about half the price you would get in the U.S. or in the E.U., because of lighter taxation- might be a bit more expensive for you Americans because of recent currency value move), you might want to look into this before you hop on your plane.

... Pretty stupid way to discourage kids from smoking if you ask me. Raise the fecking tax so we would have more money to spend on our crumbling medical system. Or have the fecking kids do some volunteer work on a cancer ward. You know how people die from lung cancer? You drown in your own lungs. Did you know people's brain is hooked to nicotine besically the same way it would to cocaine? If I were a dictator I would take down JT and put all those drug lords to prison for the rest of their lives.