The government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda set the country’s first national target to reduce the smoking rate in a program that seeks to reduce the rate from 19.5 per cent of adults to 12 per cent by April, 2023, the Kyodo newswire reported.

A previous government anti-smoking programme in 2007 had refrained from setting a target out of consideration for tobacco companies, the news agency reported. The new target is based on the number of smokers who have said they wish to quit, and assumes all of them will. Currently four of every 10 smokers said they wish to quit, Kyodo said.
Targets also were set to reduce exposure to second-hand smoke. Work sites should be free of exposure to second-hand smoke by 2020, Kyodo reported. (pi)