Japan to roll out age-verifying cigarette machines

In a move that's sure to annoy tobacco-lovers nationwide, especially underage ones, Japan has announced that the country's 620,000 cigarette vending machines will be replaced in 2008 with models that require an RFID-embedded age-verification card to release their delicious-but-deadly wares. This won't have much of an impact for those who buy their smokes by the carton or over-the-counter, but if a tobacco jones hits you while you're jammin' at the karaoke bar, you'd better be sporting your "smoker's card" (which, conveniently, can also be used to pay for your habit) . We're not really sure how effective this system is going to be, though, as it probably won't be all that difficult for kids to buy one of these exclusive cards from some shady non-smoking adult.

[Ryan @ Mar 31st 2006 7:20AM]

Not only if they buy them, they could just BORROW one of those cards from an adult, or even steal it.

[Joey @ Mar 31st 2006 8:39AM]

Using that logic its the same as asking an adult to buy it for you, which has always been possible. And as for the stealing thats illegal anyway, nothing more that can be done.

[OddManOut @ Mar 31st 2006 8:50AM]

Well how did they do the age verification on the porno DVD vending machines ? I remember seeing that back in '02. It would accept credit cards, but you somehow had to verify your age. Wakaranai...

So long as they don't mess with the Beer/Wine/Whisky/Sake vending machines we'll have no problems (though there have been rumblings that they might ban them...YIKES!)...

[Unomi @ Mar 31st 2006 8:54AM]

Where I live, The Netherlands, such system is already in place, but then with the predecessor of RFID, the SmartCard principle.

Indeed, underaged youth could ask an adult to buy such card for them. So it won't help much unless they forbid adults to help the underaged to 'commit a crime'. Same counts for alcoholic drinks.

Not anyone is going to keep underaged youth from doing anything prohibited but the police. And they are never around when needed.

- Unomi -

[js @ Mar 31st 2006 9:15AM]

Wouldn't it also be possible that this kind of technology would encourage adults to buy cigarettes in bulk, and selling them to minors at much higher prices?

[Charlotte @ Mar 31st 2006 9:28AM]

Wouldn't it make more sense to just require a legal ID (like a driver's license)? People have those already, and generally aren't so inclined to sell them, and fake ID's don't usually have a functional magnetic strip.

[Revels @ Mar 31st 2006 9:32AM]

Anything that pisses off smokers just a little more is fine by me :)

[Alan @ Mar 31st 2006 9:48AM]

It amazes me that people still smoke...let alone in 2008. Idiots.

[kaius @ Mar 31st 2006 10:06AM]

I think a lot of this RFID stuff is used for marketing purposes.

They just use other "advantages" to headline the implementation.

I don't like what I'm seeing :(

[Gary @ Mar 31st 2006 10:07AM]

I could imagine this working in Hong Kong quite easily. Their ID card is already used at automated border crossings, libraries and starting this year as a driver's license. It has biometric data so I'd imagine you'd ID yourself with the card, thumbscan and pay (probably via the rfid style Octopus cards which pay for transport fares and also work with some fast food places and vending machines). How do you stop people selling cigs to underaged kids? Put a reg code on the filters and then log who buys which cigarettes. You can't easily destroy the filters by fire, shredding or water and all it'd take is one slipup to get caught. Same way newspaper companies check to see which paperboys dump their newspapers instead of delivering them...

[stayontheroofs @ Mar 31st 2006 10:56AM]

There's no such thing as a "shady non-smoking adult".

[Joe @ Mar 31st 2006 10:59AM]

Japanese people don't steal, remember.

[ketsuke @ Mar 31st 2006 11:23AM]

One of the things that I miss the most about Japan are those ubitquitous machines. Want something to drink? Just drive down the road, you will find out a machine somewhere, no matter if the road looks deserted and a terrible place to put a machine. That sort of vending would never make it in the US, namely due by our hooligan-like attitude about things (hey, if I can steal it/burn it/vandalize it, then it was meant to be done. Oh well.

(I love dydo's "American Coffee" a monstrous can for �100-�150)

[Sebastian @ Mar 31st 2006 11:24AM]

#7 Smokers usually don't get that pissed off over rules like these. They'll always find a way around them.

[Giggity-Your-Gusmoogity @ Mar 31st 2006 12:08PM]

They had age-verifying ciggy-machines (sans-RFID i think or maybe that was a trial period for them) in Japan as far back as the summer of 2001 - the only problem was that a few metres down the road you'd always find another machine that didnt require ID.

[KochiKame @ Mar 31st 2006 12:44PM]

Won't help much, the Japanese attitude toward underage smoking and drinking is that it's not the big an issue. Under-aged kids could probably go tabacco store or a convience store and pick up a cigarette. I used to buy cigarettes when I was 11 years old for my uncle all the time at the store and nobody cared.

When I grew up in Japan, every time I went to a restaurant with my cousin during middle school and he ordered a liter of beer the waitress always brought two cups assuming I was drinking (even tough I was in my middle-school uniform).

[J @ Mar 31st 2006 12:49PM]

don't they also have alcohol vending machines?

[kuhndog @ Mar 31st 2006 1:06PM]

sounds like a way to track who is smoking and who isn't to me.

[specialk @ Mar 31st 2006 2:04PM]

how will tourists be able to get in on this?

[fahmi @ Mar 31st 2006 2:17PM]

it's about time they started to sell babies in vending machine.

[Kevin @ Mar 31st 2006 2:20PM]

Yes J, you can pick yourself up some Asahi biiru or chuuhai while walking back from the izakaya.

[Loban @ Mar 31st 2006 2:40PM]

Oh yeah smokers, keep sucking on your cancer sticks, you keep my wife employed. She's in cancer research.

[diulei @ Mar 31st 2006 5:16PM]

I gotta say, this won't work, but it'll just be annoying. Though, being able to grab a beer at 4am and walk around the streets of Tokyo isn't a bad thing, damn these Californian laws.

[aptmunich @ Mar 31st 2006 6:08PM]

In germany, you have to insert a bank card (which you can only get ages 16+). You can also then pay with the chip on it.

[Michael Ishigaki @ Mar 31st 2006 6:32PM]

Yes, in Japan you can also buy alcohol from vending machines. However, the vending machines are watched by adults from inside the store they are outside of.

[Ben @ Mar 31st 2006 7:39PM]

This is going to piss tourists off.

[Gary @ Apr 1st 2006 7:21AM]

They could always just go to a shop you know...

[OddManOut @ Apr 1st 2006 9:31AM]

"being able to grab a beer at 4am and walk around the streets of Tokyo isn't a bad thing, damn these Californian laws."

I definitely agree. But since when do the liqour vending machines stay on all night ? I thought they all shut off at around 11:30pm ?

Or are you talking about the Conbinis ? Man they are so thick in Tokyo you can spread your arms and touch two of'em at the same time...

[zen micro @ Apr 1st 2006 12:50PM]

The government should keep tobacco legal but ban the manufacturing of cigarettes. This way people who are already hooked will have to roll their own, and kids aren't going to go out of their way to roll their own just to start a habit.

[Joe Hatfield @ Apr 2nd 2006 1:05AM]

Are cigarettes really delicious? I've always assumed they were disgusting but people just someone developed a taste for them after extensive exposure. If they're really that tasty, maybe it's time I took up smoking.

[Hebitsuikaza @ Apr 3rd 2006 2:04PM]

I wonder if they'll use Kago Ai to promote these things. I don't think one can get a better image for teen smoking than a girl who was an icon for six years and then blew it all in one night because she was smoking a few days before her 18th birthday.

[Zachery @ Aug 16th 2006 6:21AM]

Well that would be no different... Teen can just take adult's ID and get cigarettes and put the ID back to adult's wallet or purse or something.

Future will be very hard to be avoid from the law.. I can see it, it's obsiviously not cool...

[Yamamoto Nikutaro @ Jul 6th 2007 1:37PM]

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