Cigarettes: License to kill for Rp 27 trillion

Santi W.E. Soekanto, Journalist, Jakarta

Today, 27 March 2003, the South Jakarta District Court is expected to hand down its verdict on the class action filed by antismoking campaigners against the alleged violation by tobacco firms of the tobacco commercials ban, and the activists' demand for Rp 5 billion in compensation for "victims of tobacco."

The verdict was scheduled for March 13, but presiding judge Tjaroko Imam Widagdi said judges were "not ready" -- a delay that might or might not have something to do with haggling over the idea promoted by business interests to scrap a ruling on nicotine and tar content in a government regulation.

The business interests group reportedly prevailed, and President Megawati Soekarnoputri lifted on March 10 restrictions on the nicotine and tar content in tobacco products -- in effect allowing the continued production of a "weapon of mass destruction." Last year, of 215 billion cigarettes produced, 84 percent were kretek, having a high tar and nicotine content.

The business interests have reportedly undertaken a costly exercise -- transporting tobacco farmers by the busload from Temanggung, Central Java, to persuade lawmakers in Senayan to approve the lifting of the restriction, lobbying the ministers of agriculture and trade and industry; even sending representatives to a global negotiation on tobacco control in Geneva.

But what a gain have they made!

Experts and business representatives agree that it is expensive to lower tar and nicotine levels. The lifting of the restriction means that the tobacco firms would not have to spend at least Rp 50 billion in laser machines that can bring down the content of the poisonous substances, according to Tempo. It also means the producers would not have to replace local tobacco, containing high levels of nicotine, with Virginia tobacco, which costs twice as much. The farmers could go on planting tobacco and cloves, and the government could hope that its target of Rp 27 trillion in revenues from cigarette duties would be met this year.

Those standing to lose out are not the activists, but ordinary people who smoke and continue to be killed by tobacco-related diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that tobacco kills 4.9 million people worldwide every year and will kill 10 million per year by 2030. Without a war on tobacco, cigarettes will kill 500 million of the 6 billion people alive today on earth.

A verdict from the South Jakarta District Court on the class action, depending on its content, could become a new weapon either in favor of antismoking campaigners or against them.

Revoking the restriction on tar and nicotine content "represents a setback for the government's health development campaign," said Anhari Achadi, an expert at the Ministry of Health.

"Most people realize that smoking harms your health, but this awareness is still being undermined by this 'temporary interest' in a revenue of Rp 27 trillion per year," Anhari told The Jakarta Post. "It is really a challenge for the health ministry to convince other sectors about the long-term danger of cigarettes to the quality of our human resources and to health costs that will eventually be greater than the revenues ... ."

This is not to mention that it is usually the poor in Indonesian society that burn Rp 90 trillion -- as the excise of Rp 27 trillion is 30 percent of the total cigarette price -- on cigarettes every year. "This is greater than the total amount in loan that Indonesia has been begging from bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Consultative Group on Indonesia," wrote an Indonesian doctor working in an international health facility in the U.S.

What is even more ironic, the doctor said, is that the money that Indonesians burn on cigarettes ends up in bank accounts in the U.S., as the leading producers of cigarettes here are permanent residents of California!

We would save US$9 billion per year if cigarettes were to be banned. This might not be realistic today, but a "comprehensive measure to reduce demand and supply", as Anhari put it, would not only save money but benefit the whole nation, healthwise.

The Sisyphean task of fighting the dangers of tobacco in Indonesia -- where even its lung center, Persahabatan hospital, East Jakarta, is full of patients and visitors who smoke -- is made even more difficult, not only by large tobacco business interests in Indonesia, but those in the U.S. as well.

In the face of tobacco-related deaths, the U.S. has become a defender of the production of this weapon of mass destruction.

In Geneva, late last month, about 170 nations met in a bid to agree on a global treaty on tobacco, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The treaty requires nations to implement serious tobacco control programs. It would, for one, require cigarette companies to print health warnings on packs that would occupy at least 30 percent of their surface. It would eliminate labeling that misleads smokers into thinking that a "light" or "mild" cigarette is less harmful than other types.

The pact would require signatories to move toward a comprehensive ban on cigarette advertising "within the limits" of a nation's legislation. Signatories would be required to fund tobacco-control programs and consider taxes that helped to reduce smoking. Most participants agreed to the final text of the treaty, which will be presented to WHO in May for adoption.

A Chicago Tribune columnist, Derrick Z. Jackson, wrote on March 10 that "the ink had not even dried when the U.S. delegates started making noises that the Bush administration might not sign it." U.S. health attache to Geneva David Hohman said the U.S. wanted the treaty to allow a nation to opt out of provisions it found objectionable. "For the U.S., that means just about the whole treaty."

Jackson said that in the 2002 election cycle, Big Tobacco gave $6.4 million of its $8.1 million in political contributions to the Republican Party.

According to reports, the U.S. is not happy with the idea of federal funding of antitobacco programs. The U.S. is against the treaty's ban on free samples; it is not happy about the proposal to have giant health warnings on packs. The cigarette industry is crying that such large warnings would violate its trademark rights.

In short, when Indonesians smoke Indonesian cigarettes, they enrich certain people based in California. When they smoke American cigarettes, they are not only killing themselves while enriching others in Virginia and North Carolina, but are also paying to keep Bush in office and to continue the production of this nicotine-based weapon of mass destruction.