Japan Smoking Stats for 2008

The smoking stats for 2008 in Japan are up at the Japan Health Promotion and Fitness Foundation.

Statistics show that 39.5% of Japanese male adults smoke - in a slightly better shape than 1966 where 83.7% (!) where smokers. Males in their 40's smoked the most - 47.8% of them.
As for adult females - 12.9% are smokers - most of them being in their 30's.

Complaining does not really achieve much in life so I tend not to moan about the fact that everybody in Tokyo *seems* to smoke. There are very few restaurants in Tokyo with non-smoking sections and even if there are then it looks something like you see in the photo above.
I approached the entrance and asked if they had non-smoking sections and they said yes. I was lead to the small round table you see on the left of the photo - the smoking section is where the guy reading the newspaper is.

After working for Amazon Japan in the Tokyo offices for a few years, I spent about 5 months in their Seattle offices - loved the fact that most restaurants were non-smoking. Came back to Japan to take up passive smoking again but the readily available Figures more than made up for that ^^

So, even if you don't smoke - you will be guaranteed to smoke passively in Japan whether you rike it or not. I guess the price of cigarettes over here helps - a pack of cigarettes in Japan costs between 2 and 3 USD for a pack of 20.

Could you tell that I was writing this post (so that I don't write it twice) for DC and BB? ^^;
I think I've done this poll already but lets do it again with the new readers ^^