Posted on 11/26/2011 7:01:54 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
TOKYO — Anti-smoking campaigners in Japan are accusing one of the world’s leading tobacco companies of marketing products to teenage girls at World Cup volleyball events here.
Japan Tobacco’s logo (JT) is on the national team uniforms, court-side digital billboards, TV ads and “gift” packages handed out to schoolgirls, mothers and children entering Yoyogi National Stadium and arenas across Japan during the World Cup, which runs until Dec. 4.
While the United States, European Union and other industrialized countries have long banned tobacco companies from sponsoring sporting events, Japan Tobacco has been a major promoter of volleyball, helping to make the sport popular among schoolgirls. Japan has hosted every World Cup since 1977, and three of the last four world championships.
Japan Tobacco also sponsors a national team starring the country’s top player, Yoshie Takeshita.
About 10 percent of Japanese women smoke, compared with 40 percent of men, according to government estimates. Japan's national team players, idolized by millions of Japanese schoolgirls, wear Japan Tobacco logos and play before Japan Tobacco digital billboards ads in a win over the United States at the Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo, Japan, on Nov. 18, 2011. (Christopher Johnson/Special to The Washington Times)Japan’s national team players, idolized by millions of Japanese schoolgirls, wear Japan Tobacco logos and play before Japan Tobacco digital billboards ads in a win over the United States at the Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo, Japan, on Nov. 18, 2011. (Christopher Johnson/Special to The Washington Times)
Anti-smoking activists have long accused Japanese volleyball groups of promoting tobacco use, and say JT is targeting young women.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
So what?
Nanny State PING!
Exactly right. So what?
F.R.s resident tobacco Nazi nanny stater, will be along soon to tell us what.
Anything less would be sexist.
Girls have a right to smoke too.
Japan Tobacco (JT) has diversified out of cigarette business and is now a big player in the soft drink market — especially sports drinks and healthy teas. These are quite popular, and I drink a lot of them myself.
They are also involved in international agribusiness and import a lot of packaged foods from China and other Asian nations, in addition to spending a lot of money promoting environmental awareness and good social behavior.
The point is, the JT logo doesn’t really mean cigarettes anymore and most Japanese don’t make that association.
Kiddie porn is legal to possess in Tokyo, very little girls are sex objects. U-15 shops litter the city.
compared to that, this is nothing
So you are looking for hot pics of underage girls now?? Google “U-15 Japan” or something like that
Is this an attack or a criticism of Japanese culture? I mean what is going on here?
I posted it, because I’m keeping tabs on nanny state issues.
Where does this "underage stuff" come in? And who is "looking for pics"? You miss the /sarc tags altogether.
That second one wasn't very serious though.
Anti-smoking is merely kindergarten for the coming one world government that will regulate all aspects of life.
I am always put in mind of what Mark Twain said:
"Imagine that I am a member of Congress. Then imagine that I am an idiot . . . excuse me, I repeat myself."
I don’t know about the treatment of girls in Japan. I’m responding to the “nanny state” treatment of smokers in this country. Our people use the “Law” to achieve their vision of an utopia which is often nothing more than an idiocy. Moral suasion is one thing. Use of the “Law” combined with enforcement using “lethal force” is quite another. It sometimes seems to amount to the statement, “we will kill you to keep you safe.” Thus sarcasm. Thus Mark Twain.
I agree with you on that.
If they are, they aren't very good at it, since only 10% of females smoke vs. 40% of males, so what's the problem?
Ah, JT...I used to smoke Mild Seven Lights. They were cheaper than Marlboros on base.
It’s a new generation of the people who brought you Prohibition. As with communism, they resort to the “it only failed because it wasn’t implemented right” argument. It failed because it was too widespread and popular to control, it pissed people off, it killed people, and it would NEVER compromise it’s Capital T Total Abstinence (for everybody else) position.
Here’s another Twainism I learned watching the Burns series on it: “Nothing needs reforming like somebody else’s bad habit.”
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