Cigarette sales in 2020 dropped below 100 billion for the first time in decades in Japan, as more smokers apparently opted to use heated tobacco products driven by increased use of teleworking amid the pandemic, reports The Japan Times.

In 2020, sales of rolled tobacco products fell by a record 16.3 per cent from the year before to 98.8 billion sticks, the lowest since 1990, according to the Tobacco Institute of Japan. The figure represents a decline of more than a 70 per cent from 1996, when sales peaked at 348.3 billion cigarettes.
Smoking rates among adults have been declined in recent years due to health concerns, according to a health ministry survey. In 2019, 27.1 per cent of men and 7.6 per cent of women smoked regularly, down from 29 per cent and 8.1 per cent from the year before, the report said.
“Due to the spread of the coronavirus, there have been more opportunities to smoke at home,” an industry official was quoted as saying, adding such people turned to heat-not-burn cigarettes due to a reluctance to smoke inside their homes or on balconies.
According to the report, it has become difficult for smokers to light up cigarettes outside their homes after the revised health promotion law fully went into effect in April last year, banning people from smoking indoors, including in government buildings, eateries, hotel lobbies and workplaces.