License to smoke

As of today us beleaguered smokers face yet another humiliating obstacle in our drives for self-destruction: the Taspo, a photo ID necessary to purchase cigarettes from vending machines, instigated to stop the underaged, which in Japan is anyone under 20 in the case of smoking, from buying their fix from any of the millions of conveniently available, inviting and mostly unguarded machines. The Taspo can be acquired via a laborious process of sending off for forms, to be filled in and sent back with verifiable ID and a photograph. although there are ways around it. It's all slightly barmy, of course.

Despite some half-hearted efforts from various fronts, Japan is still very much a smoker's country. Maybe I don't observe well enough but I wasn't under the impression underage smoking was a huge issue over here, but it might be. The biggest crime still goes unexamined, however, which is, the one thing I, as a smoker, detest, young families taking their children, sometimes even babies, into the smoking areas of coffeeshops and restaurants. Nothing ruins a good cigarette more than feeling self-conscious about the 2 year old at the next table, even though his idiotic mother or father is happily blowing his own smoke towards his progeny. It disgusts me. My solution: to put the same age limit buying cigarettes has on smoking areas, nobody under 20 is allowed in one. My colleagues and other lost souls I happen to preach at occasionally all seem to agree this is a spiffing idea, yet I hold no hopes of it ever being passed into law. More likely is that Japan will blindly follow in the Western whiners' footsteps of banning all public smoking one way or another, though that, thanks to my own smoking habits and the speed at which change occurs in Japan, probably won't happen in my foreshortened lifetime.

I think I'll end up getting one of these Taspos anyway, as it is such a typically Japanese idea, even though I purchase all my cigarettes from the local kiosk from an ancient woman who knows me and my habits so well I need not even ask her, because she dives behind the counter as I approach and gets out my usual with a smile. But it'd be fun to wave a Taspo around when abroad so we can all have a good look and a giggle at my "license to smoke".

Now we wait for the next Card-o. After the Passmo, the chargeable public transport card, and the aforementioned Taspo I predict a Nomimo or Pissflo, an ID to allow salarymen to not only to purchase alcohol, but have it used as a pre-paid taxi fare payment card with the drinker's address encoded. It's a winner, I think you'll agree!