Japan Tobacco (JT) on Friday announced the establishment of a standard value for radioactive materials in Japanese domestic leaf tobacco.

Having taken into consideration the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s provisional regulation values for food after the earthquake last year, JT had established a provisional standard value which was 500 Bq/kg for radioactive cesium. The newly established JT standard value for radioactive cesium is 100 Bq/kg.
JT will conduct pre-purchase testing of this year’s Japanese domestic leaf tobacco on the basis of its standard value, and not purchase any for which the values exceed the standard. "No tobacco for which the values exceed the newly established JT standard will be used for products, as it will all be discarded," says the company in a press release.
The purchased leaf tobacco from last year has not been used either for their products – except for some tobacco from Kyushu and Okinawa – because a certain period of time is required for the purpose of aging between the purchase and use of leaf tobacco.
JT says it will "continue with its scheme of testing after purchase and testing and monitoring a number of times at each stage of the production process". (ci)