Japan Tobacco Inc. plans to raise the prices of tobacco products from Oct. 1 following the government's decision to raise the tobacco tax by ¥3.5 per cigarette or ¥70 per 20-cigarette pack. As a result, prices for cigarette packs, now around ¥300, will top ¥400 in what JT calls an "unprecedented price hike." Smokers should view the price hike as a good incentive to quit smoking. Doing so would improve their health and that of those around them.
Cancer claims roughly one of every three lives in Japan, and lung cancer is the top killer among cancers. Of the 340,000 Japanese who died of cancer in 2007, 67,000 suffered from lung cancer. As is the case with many kinds of cancer, lung cancer often develops for some time before its symptoms are noticed. Unfortunately, by that time, it is usually difficult to cure.
Compared with North America and Europe, the percentage of smokers in Japan's adult population is high. In 2008, 37 percent of men and 9 percent of women smoked.
A 2007 survey of 30,000 nonsmoking married women provides men a good reason to quit smoking. It shows that such women married to smokers were 1.5 to 2.2 times more likely to develop lung cancer than married women in nonsmoking households.
Many people are not aware of the importance of undertaking annual physical examinations that include tests for cancer. The percentage of people who underwent municipality-sponsored exams for cancer in fiscal 2008 was 19.4 percent for uterine cancer, 17.8 percent for lung cancer, 16.1 percent for colon cancer, 14.7 percent for breast cancer and 10.2 percent for stomach cancer. By comparison, such rates in South Korea have topped 50 percent.
The sooner cancer is detected, the easier it is to treat. Therefore, people should undergo a thorough physical exam annually. Employers can play a positive role by encouraging their employees and their families to do so.