To realize such goals, some of the revenue from tobacco taxes should be channeled into cancer research. More than 35 percent of cancer cases are believed to be smoking-related. Revenue from tobacco taxes amounted to about 1 trillion yen in fiscal 1997, for example. So if one-third of such revenue is set aside for research, Japan could match the United States in terms of funding. The government should also consider allocating taxpayers' money for anticancer programs as part of its public works projects.
Prevention is arguably the most powerful weapon in the fight against cancer.
The number of cancer patients peaked in the United States in 1992, and has fallen since then. Antismoking campaigns are assigned most credit for this decline. For the first time last year, the number of deaths from lung cancer in Japan exceeded stomach cancer deaths. The time is overdue for Japan to cast off its reputation as a smokers paradise by, for instance, encouraging minors not to take up the habit. The World Health Organization acknowledges that a stomach bacteria called Helicobacter pylori that causes gastric ulcers may also be linked to stomach cancer.