Excise fund hampers anti-smoking campaign
Excise fund hampers anti-smoking campaign
JAKARTA (JP): Governments' heavy reliance on excise revenues from cigarettes is getting in the way of anti-smoking campaigns in most developing countries, including Indonesia, a health expert of the University of Indonesia said on Tuesday.
Daniati K.S. Soewarta of the university's School of Medicine said during a seminar on Tuesday that while more people in industrialized countries are kicking the habit, the number of smokers in developing countries is increasing, particularly among young people.
Daniati, a lung disease specialist, said governments in developing countries have not been very supportive of anti- smoking campaigns because they needed the huge excise revenues that cigarette manufacturers are contributing to their coffers.
Ignorance about the health hazards of smoking has allowed the number of smokers in developing countries to increase almost unchecked, she said.
The World Health Organizations (WHO) reported in 1991 that cigarettes are responsible for the death of three million people each year in advanced and developing countries.
The report, based on a survey between 1985 and 1990, estimated that 52 percent of all adult men and 10 percent of all adult women worldwide smoked. The average rates for developed countries were 51 percent of the men and 21 percent of the women, while for developing countries they were 54 and eight percent respectively.
The rates for Indonesia however was 61 percent of all adult men and five percent of adult women, according to the report which was cited by Daniati in her paper.
She presented her paper in a seminar on Women's Awareness over Cigarette Problems organized by the Indonesian Women Against Tobacco (WITT), a member of the United States-based International Network of Women Against Tobacco (INWAT) with 34 other countries. The group is campaigning to increase women's role in the fight against tobacco here.
The chairwoman of the Indonesian Heart Foundation, L.A. Hanifah, told the seminar that anti-smoking campaigns in developing countries are cursed with many obstacles, including government attitudes.
"Governments only look at the economic benefits of the tobacco industry but not at the problems it causes. They are ignorant about the health effect and the huge medical cost they are accumulating for later," Hanifah said, adding that the cost in fact outweighs the excise revenues from cigarettes.
Dianiati said smoking is still the chief cause of heart illness, now already the number one killer disease in Indonesia, and the chief cause of cancer, especially lung cancer.
She said a recent survey of 50 people who suffer lung cancer by the University of Indonesia's School of Medicine found that 78 percent of them were smokers, 10 percent were former smokers for periods between one and 10 years, and four percent were former smokers for more than 10 year. Only eight percent of them were non-smokers.
Hanifah said anti-smoking campaigns must also target teenagers because of the possibility that many would later turn to drugs. (31)