Child Smokers Spend Rp4.5 Trillion on 4.12 Billion Cigarettes Annually

An estimated 2.03 million children in Indonesia spend Rp4.5 trillion on cigarettes annually, according to data presented by Ridhwan Fauzi, a researcher at the Ruang Kebijakan Kesehatan Indonesia (RUKKI) Foundation, during a discussion in Jakarta on Thursday. Based on projections for 2025, the prevalence of child smokers aged 13 to 17, equivalent to junior and senior high school students, reaches 2.03 million individuals. RUKKI calculated the expenditure based on the average price of cigarettes consumed by children, which is around Rp1,000 per stick. Ridhwan explained that the calculation also categorised family economic backgrounds into five quintiles, with the first quintile representing the lowest economic group and the fifth quintile the highest. The results revealed a clear disparity. The prevalence of smoking in the fifth quintile is 6 per cent, while in the first quintile, or the lowest socio-economic group, it reaches 10 per cent. This indicates that child smokers are more likely to come from economically disadvantaged families. “This means cigarette consumption is more dominated by children from lower-middle-income families compared to upper-middle-income groups,” Ridhwan stated. Differences were also observed in average daily consumption. Children from the fifth quintile smoke an average of five cigarettes per day, whereas those from the first quintile smoke seven per day. Overall, the average consumption among child smokers is 5.62 sticks per day, with a total prevalence of 9.2 per cent. Cumulatively, the total cigarette consumption for this age group reaches approximately 4.17 billion sticks per year. The total expenditure of Rp4.5 trillion also includes contributions to state revenue through excise, local taxes, and VAT. However, Ridhwan stressed that this figure represents a waste of consumption funds by children. In response to these findings, RUKKI is urging the government to implement serious interventions to reduce the number of child smokers. One proposed strategic measure is to increase excise tariffs and eliminate policies that allow cheap cigarettes to remain on the market. “This requires serious intervention, one of which is through increasing excise and abolishing the discourse on cheap cigarettes. Because clearly, when cheap cigarettes are reintroduced, it is the lower-income groups who will bear the largest expenditure,” Ridhwan concluded.