The government's plan to tighten rules against indoor smoking in public spaces is under attack from ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers as well as associations of restaurants and bars, who complain that the proposed new regulations will push small establishments out of business. While the steps are being explored now as Tokyo prepares to host the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, opponents should realize that passive smoking is a real health hazard — and that Japan's efforts to address the problem are long overdue.

Out of some 6 million tobacco-induced deaths worldwide every year, 600,000 will be a result of secondhand smoke, according to the World Health Organization. Last year, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry estimated that 15,000 people die in Japan every year from illnesses caused by passive smoking, ranging from lung cancer to heart attacks and strokes. While the smoking rate fell to a record low 18.2 percent in 2015, government surveys show that 30 to 40 percent of nonsmokers experience passive smoking in such places as restaurants, bars, workplaces and game parlors.

A WHO framework convention on tobacco regulations, which Japan ratified in 2004, calls on countries to take effective steps to protect people from passive exposure to smoking in public spaces used by large numbers of people, and 49 nations have enacted laws to ban smoking in public spaces such as medical institutions, schools and restaurants. However, Japan only calls for efforts to prevent passive smoking in such places in a law aimed at promoting people's health, and it carries no penalties for failures to act.