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Japan: Mother lets underage son use Taspo card to buy cigarettes

A Japanese woman who allegedly lent her 15-year-old son one of Japan's new "smart cards," which are intended to prevent minors from buying cigarettes from vending machines, may face charges.

The incident comes following attempts to restrict youth access to vending machines which now require buyers, who must be 20 or older, to use the cards to buy cigarettes from machines.

Each card — called a taspo, or tobacco passport — is embedded with the user's age on a Mifare chip, a smart card technology from Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors that is popular around the world.

Some 4.7 million taspos have been issued, according to the industry group the Tobacco Institute of Japan. But this is the first time police are seeking charges in a taspo card violation.

Smokers must apply for the cards, which are free, and some people hope the process will get smokers to quit.

Japan's smoking population, now estimated at 26 million, has dropped every year for nine years. But Japanese males are still among the heaviest smokers in the world, at 53 percent, compared to 26 percent of American males.

Fukuoka Prefecture police in southwestern Japan said in a statement that "The boy's mother, who is 41, and whose name was not disclosed because she has not been charged, lent him her taspo card so he could buy cigarettes to smoke at home." The woman faces a maximum penalty of $96.

Source: The Associated Press, 5th June 2008
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