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.
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