Indonesia is unfortunately known for having some of the highest smoking rates in the world, with government statistics showing that nearly one-third of the population are active tobacco users, which includes an alarmingly high number of child smokers. Aldi Rizal, the infamous smoking baby of Indonesia who was known to smoke as many as 40 cigarettes a day at the age of 2, became the poster child for the problem of child smokers in Indonesia back in 2010 (he has since supposedly kicked the habit). Amidst the international outcry and embarrassment over his case, the government promised to pass more measures to stop children from getting addicted to tobacco.
But it is clear that lawmakers still aren’t doing nearly enough to prevent young people from picking up the deadly habit, as their own statistics show that the number of smokers under 18 in Indonesia rose over the last year, from 7.2% in 2014 to 8.8% in 2015.
“Our target for the prevalence of smokers under 18 years old was to decrease it to 6.4% in 2016 and down to 5.4% in 2019. However, in reality, is has now actually increased significantly,” said M Subah, the director general of disease control and prevention at the Ministry of Health on Saturday as quoted by Tempo.
Subah said his ministry has numerous programs aimed at smoking prevention and cessation, such as open counseling at health care centers for those who wished to quit.
While the Health Ministry does indeed have numerous anti-tobacco programs, it is at cross-purpose with other parts of the government that are actively supporting the tobacco industry by, for example, keeping tariffs on tobacco low so that they remain affordable to the vast majority of poor Indonesians.
The government has also continuously refused to ratify the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), and its the only country in Asia yet to sign and ratify the convention.
The WHO estimates about 200,000 Indonesians dies due to tobacco-related diseases each year. Think about that the next time a government official goes on about the country needing to execute drug dealers to stop a supposed drug emergency. Nicotine is the true drug scourge of Indonesia, and the government is sitting back and counting its tobacco tax revenues while it lets another generation get hooked.
