Taspo

[burstandbloom]

Can you get a Taspo card as a foreigner? I mean there are plenty of places I can get cigarettes in stores, but it'd be convenient to have one I guess, when the store by my dorm closes I can only get them out of the vending machines.
On that note a funny story about my Taspo experience, a Japanese man gave me his Taspo to use when we were in the Izakaiya and I went out and bought my cigs, scanned the card and everything...but, there is a button you press and it puts credit on your card, say you put in 1000 yen buy a back of smokes and press the button, you get 700 yen credit on your card so you don't have to use money, just your card next time. (I think this is how it works?)
Well I didn't know that at the time, so I ended up having to buy like 4 packs of cigarettes at once. I also think its funny that they use this Taspo system with cigarettes but there is nothing on the beer vending machines. (which for me is a good thing) I suppose cigarettes are WAY worse than drinking so it does kind of make sense.

[NileCat]

Welcome to Japan, burstandbloom!

Taspo English Guidance
http://www.taspo.jp/english/index.html

[keatonatron]

As long as you have Japan-issued identification you can get one.

I got one for work. I don't smoke myself, but if I'm out on a late-night video shoot and the director says "Hey, you, go get me a pack of Hope super lights!" and I come back with "Um, er, can I borrow your taspo?" things probably wouldn't go so good

[Harisenbon]

I got one for work. I don't smoke myself, but if I'm out on a late-night video shoot and the director says "Hey, you, go get me a pack of Hope super lights!" and I come back with "Um, er, can I borrow your taspo?" things probably wouldn't go so good

That's actually becoming very common for salarymen and salesmen for that exact same reason.

[Pork Chop]

I'm not a regular smoker, but when I drink I tend to have a smoke or two.
When I'm on vacation, I tend to drink a lot more than normal.
As a tourist, I thought it was one of the dumbest things I'd ever seen.
"I can only buy cigarettes from a vending machine if I'm a resident?"
Last year, my first time spending significant time in mainland Japan, I remember going all over Ginza and Yamanashi screaming about Taspo.
Finding a convenience store that sold smokes wasn't always easy.