TOKYO, June 2 (Xinhua) -- About 50 anti-tobacco activists, including foreign residents, staged a demonstration on Saturday in Tokyo's famous Ginza business district, calling on the Japanese government to tighten control on tobacco and smoking.

    The "Smoke-Free Walk" was aimed at urging the Japanese government to conform to international health standards by banning smoking in restaurants, workplaces, parks, train stations, and all other public places.

    Participants, who marched through the Ginza central street in the afternoon, also called on the Japanese authority to launch a wide-ranging national tobacco control regime that encompasses strict tobacco control laws, comprehensive tobacco education beginning at the elementary school level, public awareness campaigns for all age groups, and gender-specific campaigns to address the dramatic increase in the number of female smokers in recent years.

    Organizers said Japan is the only developed country lacked behind in the global anti-smoking campaign.

    The Japanese government was also called on to establish an independent Tobacco Control Agency that is authorized to coordinate all of the government's tobacco control efforts, and to increase the price of cigarettes from the current 2.48 to 2.64 U.S. dollars per pack to at least seven dollars per pack.

    On Thursday, a group of anti-tobacco activists gathered at the Japanese health ministry to present a list of policy demands, calling on the government to consider the exacerbation to the budget deficit brought about by tobacco use as the bad habit increases the burden of the health care system.