Japan in training for pre-Olympics smoking bans

A group of lawmakers within Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has outlined a bill to ban or segregate tobacco smoking in public places ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, according to a story in The Japan Times.

The bill would call for a ban on smoking in schools and medical facilities, and require smoking areas to be separated in hotels and restaurants.

The group said that smoking restrictions had been introduced in the countries that hosted the Olympics during and after 2008, China, Canada, Britain and Russia, and in the hosts of forthcoming games, Brazil and South Korea.

The bill could be submitted at an extraordinary session of the Diet in the autumn.