Regarding the July 11 article "Lawmakers seeks sweet spot in tobacco tax debate": I support the tobacco tax hike. Many countries and localities have already traveled this path and their examples show clearly that increased taxes do not eliminate revenues, while they bring about meaningful public health benefits. Tax hikes are vigorously encouraged by the World Bank and as a part of Japan's treaty obligations under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
More important, I'm astonished that professor Takuro Morinaga, the former Japan Tobacco Inc. official quoted in the article, would call the tax hike "an act of violence" against Japan's smokers. This is Alice-in-Wonderland language, probably developed in a public relations firm somewhere.
Tobacco marketing is the real act of violence -- responsible for over 1 million deaths in Japan every decade. Every increment of advertising and business promotion that lures young people to smoke, or pulls back would-be quitters from freedom, injures and kills. That's the reality.
And while Morinaga feigns concern for the poor, the tobacco industry's terrible business hurts lower income households the hardest -- whether it is the added cost to maintain an expensive addiction for those who can least afford it, greater health-care costs, or lost income due to illness and early death.