YONAGO, Tottori -- The Japan Society for Tobacco Control (JSTC) has declared it will seek government action and legislation to prevent cigarette users from harming others with their smoke even when at home.

The declaration came during a meeting in the western Japan city of Yonago last month, where issues related to passive smoking within residences were discussed.

The JSTC debates and issues announcements regarding the state of passive smoking and measures to tackle it. The group's academic meeting was held at the Yonago Convention Center in Tottori Prefecture on Nov. 16.

A 58-year-old Hyogo Prefecture woman at the meeting said she was forced to move by her next-door neighbor's smoking in her condominium. Soon after a family with a male smoker member moved into the next door, the smell of cigarettes wafted into the woman's apartment even if she shut all the windows. She told the man who was smoking on his balcony directly, "The smells coming (into my home) are causing problems." However, the person responded with the excuse, "I smoke with consideration. You have no business telling me this or that about smoking in my private space." The problem continued.

The woman and a fellow tenant troubled by smoking sought to revise the condominium management regulation bylaws at a general tenants' meeting, and an item against "causing passive smoking in nearby apartments" was added. The problem was somewhat relieved, but the smell of tobacco continued to find its way into her apartment, and after a family member became ill, she needed to change house. The woman subsequently founded and commenced activities with the "Hyogo group to think about the damage caused by secondhand smoking at home," thinking that it was "beyond absurd to continue to suffer health problems unilaterally in one's own home with no way to escape.

Under the revised Health Promotion Act, smokers now have an obligation to be conscious about secondhand smoking-related damage, but at present, a great many are defiantly claiming there's no problem because they are being "considerate."

At the symposium, lawyer Koki Okamoto, an expert on passive smoking issues, brought up topics such as how to interpret the law and legal precedents. He introduced a December 2012 ruling by the Nagoya District Court that found inaction against secondhand smoking while causing harm to others illegal and awarded the plaintiff damages.

In recent years, it is reportedly becoming more common for condominiums to be sold as "smoke-free," with management rules that completely ban smoking within one's home and that have lowered the threshold for offense to include the "risk" of causing problems through secondhand smoking.

(Japanese original by Hiroyuki Abe, Tottori Bureau)