Quote Originally Posted by bossel
The situation in Japan is obviously completely different, since the government has a stake in a tobacco company. I would not even try to disagree with you here.
Not just a stake. Japan Tobacco was a state monopoly until 1985. It is now a public company two-thirds owned by the Japanese Finance Ministry.
It is the 3rd largest Tobacco company in the world, has subsidiaries in 120 countries and owns brands such as Mild Seven, Seven Stars, Winston, Camel or Salem. All this originally started as a state enterprise and monopoly with the tax money, instead of discouraging smoking. We will never see tobacco ads prohibited or serious government campaign against smoking as long as the government will be so deeply involved in this business.

That reminds me of Jon Woronoff's words that in Japan, "the Ministry of Health does what it can for pharmaceutical companies and physicians (not their patients), the Minisry of Agriculture looks after the farmers (not the consumers)", and so on for each ministry. Did I mention that Japan Tobacco also has a pharmaceuticals branch ? The most ironic would be if they produced medecine against lung cancer, while being sponsored by the Ministry of Health ! Business is business, as the Japanese would say (and morals has nothing to do with business).