Indonesia still haven for smokers

The cigarette industry is one of the most lucrative businesses in the country. It provides the government with huge revenue in taxes and absorb millions of workers. Yet, we all know there are negative sides to tobacco, especially its harmful effects on our health.

In conjunction with No Tobacco Day today, The Jakarta Post's Rita A. Widiadana and Stevie Emilia prepare a series of articles on the issue.

JAKARTA (JP): If you are a chain smoker, and happen to light a cigarette in one of the high-rise office buildings in Jakarta, you may find people staring or even scolding you.

You may also lose your freedom to smoke as soon as you enter a family restaurant where children hang around or public facilities like hospitals and airport waiting rooms with no-smoking signs on their walls.

But don't worry, smoking is banned only in a very few public places. You will still find Jakarta and other cities in Indonesia havens for smokers.

In a smoking and tobacco-friendly city like Jakarta, the smell of clove and filtered cigarettes fills almost all city buses, public parks, shopping centers and even school classrooms.

In the city's more affluent hangouts like exclusive business clubs, five-star hotels' lobbies and cafes, the rich freely enjoy their Cuban cigars, a growing trend among young professionals and celebrities, at least until the economy collapsed.

Even today, when the World Health Organization (WHO) and antismoking campaigners are persuading smokers around the globe to stop polluting the air, people in the capital here are largely unaware of this appeal.

This year's May 31, declared No Tobacco Day, is likely to go unnoticed by most across the country except for a small group of local antismoking activists.

Most Indonesians still see smoking as a sign of maturity, achievement and sophistication, ignoring harmful health consequences from heart diseases, asthma and lung cancer to impotence and premature ejaculation.

These attitudes ranked Indonesians as the world's fourth least aware smokers in 1996, after China, the United States and Japan.

The habit of smoking among people here is supported by a distressing fact, revealed by the University of Indonesia's Medical School, that the country's average annual tobacco consumption per capita was 1.4 kilograms or 266,000 tons of tobacco in the early 1990s. In 1996 Indonesian smokers consumed around 190 billion cigarettes.

According to World Bank calculations, every 1,000 metric tons of tobacco consumed causes about US$27.2 million (Rp 300 billion) in economic losses.

The national breakdown of cigarette consumers reflects a shocking situation. A 1994 survey by Anwar Yusuf, now chairman of the National Antismoking Forum, said that 12.8 percent of fifth and sixth graders were smokers. In another study he conducted that year, 41.5 percent of 1,000 adults surveyed had begun smoking when they were between 15 and 22 years of age.

The number of smokers has been steadily rising in the country with the most significant increases among minors and women.

Second-class

In developed countries like the United States, smokers are now being treated as second-class citizens and nonsmokers are strongly protected by the law. Meanwhile, nonsmoking people across Indonesia are still minorities whose collective voice has yet to be heard.

Antismoking campaigns, launched almost 10 years ago, have proven ineffective, while lobbies to push the government to strictly enforce laws on smoking and cigarettes have been fruitless.

The problem is worsened by the deluge of foreign cigarette companies which aggressively sell their products in Asian countries, including Indonesia.

Uton Muchtar Rafei, the WHO's regional chief in Colombo, Sri Lanka, recently said that "Asia has the unhealthy distinction of having the greatest variety of tobacco products. In some countries over 100 brands of cigarettes are available."

In Indonesia, smokers are spoiled with abundant local and foreign made cigarette products from Djamboe Bol, Minak Jinggo, Gudang Garam, Dji Sam Soe, Djarum, Bentoel to Dunhill, Marlboro, Camel, Winston, Kent and Salem.

The WHO says that tobacco exports have increased in Asia due to the fact that there is lower consumption in the West where people are becoming more health conscious and because Western governments have launched stiff measures against the tobacco industry.

Mellisa Luwia, an antismoking activist from the Indonesian Cancer Society, said that it was very difficult to convince people to give up smoking.

"A very large number of people keep thinking that smoking is their right although they realize that it is unhealthy," said Mellisa.

She added that smokers often ignore the fact that other people also have the right to inhale clean and unpolluted air, free of hazardous substances contained in cigarette smoke.

A new study published by the British Medical Journal shows that living with a smoker is a major health hazard. The study, quoted by Reuters, found that people who have never smoked (passive smokers) have an estimated 30 percent greater chance of developing heart disease if they live with a smoker.

Nonsmokers who live with smokers had increased concentrations of tobacco-specific carcinogens in blood and urine. "It is therefore to be expected that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke causes cancer and heart disease," the study revealed.

Despite such exposure of serious health hazards from smoking, the Indonesian government seems reluctant to impose strict regulations against smoking and the cigarette industry.

"We face an uphill struggle against smoking given the strong lobby of the cigarette industry. The problem is so complicated. It not only deals with health but also business, legal and employment issues," Melissa said.

The fact remains that the cigarette industry is considered one of the most likely motors of the economic recovery. Exports and taxes on cigarettes bring in badly needed revenue.

According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the government's revenue from taxes on cigarette sales amounted to Rp 4.033 trillion ($4 billion) in l996. This labor-intensive industry also absorbed no less than 4.3 million workers last year.

Tulus Abadi, an executive of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation, commented that the government is trapped in a very difficult situation.

"The government has to maintain the cigarette industry as a source of finance and jobs, but it must also solve overwhelming health and social problems related to smoking," said Tulus.

Mellisa added that it requires a strong political will from the government to regulate the cigarette industry and to protect the rights of nonsmokers.

During the Soeharto era, such action was very difficult to initiate because the former president was renowned as an avid cigar lover, she said.

Clove trading and the taxes involved were also lucrative sources of income.

"If president (B.J.Habibie) doesn't smoke, the current campaigns against smoking might probably get support from the new government," Mellisa said. (raw)