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JAPAN: REVOLUTION ON THE STREETS

William S Richardson School of Law, The University of Hawai’i at Mnoa, Honolulu, USA; levin@hawaii.edu

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

While tobacco control policy often develops incrementally, progress occasionally arrives with a "tipping point" dynamic. After seemingly fruitless years of administrative petitions, lawsuits and public protest, the quick uptake of smoke-free taxi rules in Japan from 3% to over 50% in a mere 16 months represents a great leap forward. Advocates have achieved stunning results as this enhancement for clean air for passengers will vitally protect the workplace health of well over 100 000 taxi drivers.

The change began quietly when the taxi association in Oita, a small prefectural capital on Japan's southern island of Kyushu with a substantial tourism economy, implemented Japan’s first smoke-free taxi rules for its 980 vehicles in April 2006, adding an additional 180 taxis in the prefecture’s outlying areas in September 2006. Then, after May 2007, when Nagoya’s taxi association proved this could work for 8000 taxis in the country’s fourth largest city, Kanagawa prefecture including . . . [Full text of this article]