Tobacco.org

Check your age before you smoke 

Experimental cigarette vending machines featuring an age-verification system that have been installed in Tanegashima and have been effective in reducing the number of juvenile smokers, according to the local police.

The machines developed and installed by a group of nation's tobacco industry bodies, including the Tobacco Institute of Japan, dispense cigarettes only after a purchaser's IC (integrated circuit) card had been scanned and verified.

To obtain an IC card, a person must be at least 20 years of age and has to apply to the industry bodies' operation centres in Tokyo or the island in the town of Nakatane, Kagoshima Prefecture, by supplying a document proving their birth date and a photo. The experiment began is May 2004 and is expected to run until 2008, when all cigarette vending machine in Japan will be equipped with a system of this kind.

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