JAPAN

* About 51% of men smoke in Japan - this figure has dropped from the 1980s, but it is still very high for a developed nation.
* Prevalence of smoking among women, once considered almost taboo, has risen dramatically in the last decade to nearly 10%.
* Japan's Finance Ministry is a major shareholder in Japan Tobacco, a multinational.
* A survey in the early 1990s found that 44% of male physicians smoke in Japan.
* With 500,000 cigarette vending machines, the young can easily buy cigarettes.
* It's estimated that about one in eight deaths is due to smoking, (about 100,000 deaths a year). Smoking may also contribute to four of the five leading causes of death.
* Lung cancer is the leading cancer, with more than 50,000 deaths a year.
* More Japanese men die of lung cancer than suicide. The rate of lung cancer deaths is 46 per 100,000 people while the suicide rate is 30 per 100,000.
* Japan has some of the weakest anti-tobacco laws for a developed nation, with few smoke-free public areas.

(Resource: WHO)