Because smoking is harmful to human health, that’s why many countries have instituted various anti-smoking policies. Government said that Japan Tobacco Inc. will start to produce Benson & Hedges cigarettes because Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama wants to raise tobacco products funds. Japan Tobacco controls 66.4% of the cigarette market in Japan. For example Japan’s government owns 50.01 percent of the cigarette manufacturers. As it is known Japan Tobacco is the world’s third- largest traded cigarette maker, but it has fallen 14 percent since Mr. Hatoyama decided to raise taxes on cigarettes.

Yasuhiro Matsumoto, a senior analyst at Shinsei Securities Co. in Tokyo, explained: "In the future, privatization has to be done. The government wants to keep some control over Japan Tobacco to raise taxes." Most recently, the state sold a 14.5 percent amount in June 2004. Public debt in Japan is comparing twice the size of massive domestic product, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Because of cigarettes high taxes, Japan Tobacco fame fell 1 percent to 249,300 yen at the 3 p.m. close on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Hatoyama and other officials declared that the government may raise taxes on tobacco only to discourage smoking among inhabitants especially among minors. Statistics show that the smoking rate among men in Japan fell to 36.8 percent in 2008 from 46.8 percent in 2003, the health ministry reported. And about 9.1 percent of women smoked last year, compared with 11.3 percent in 2003.
The scientists are sure that the smoking rate among Japanese inhabitants fell to as low as 27.1 percent only because cigarettes prices rose to 500 yen. And even the country got about 1 trillion yen in tax revenue each year from tobacco.

Japan Tobacco intends to raise U.K. prices from November 24, adding 10 pence (17 cents) to a pack of Camels. In Japan today cigarette prices are staying at higher levels and it is very unlikely to suppose that cigarettes costs will dramatically fall in 2010.