Mass media asked to join anti-smoking drive
JAKARTA (JP): Anti-smoking lobbyists in Indonesia are urging the local mass media and organizers of sports competitions, beneficiaries of huge sponsorship and advertising spending by cigarette manufacturers, to join in their endeavor.
That was the message that came out of a one-day seminar on the role of the media in promoting non-smoking behavior, held at the Borobudur Inter-Continental Hotel yesterday to coincide with the International No-Smoking Day.
The anti-smoking campaign would remain ineffective so long as the media and sports organizers continue to accept funds from cigarette producers, according to speakers at the seminar.
"The media plays a crucial role in persuading non-smokers not to adopt the habit and encouraging smokers to give it up," Robert J. Kim-Farley, the chief representative of the World Health Organization in Indonesia, said in his keynote speech.
The media should actively use its power to back legal measures, particularly in banning tobacco advertising and other moves aimed at countering the image of smoking as socially acceptable behavior.
However, since cigarette advertising constitutes the largest revenues for the media, Kim-Farley appealed to the government "to help the media to stand up against the pressure of tobacco industry as a provider of advertising revenue by giving them monetary compensation in return for their refusing cigarette advertising."
"The government can collect a certain percentage of the taxes that are being put on cigarettes and give that to the media as compensation for not having ads which would otherwise bring in revenue," Kim-Farley told The Jakarta Post.
"Let say for example the media shows over the last year that there was US$500,000 of advertising money received from tobacco companies," he said.
"If the media would agree to stop tobacco advertising, the government would then use some of the money it is getting from the taxes on the sales of tobacco products and give $500,000 to the newspaper, let say, to compensate for the loss of revenue they would accrue."
No-Tobacco Day
He cited an example from the Tobacco Alert, a special issue released for this year's World No-Tobacco Day, that last year the French government was considering allocating one percent of the taxes on tobacco to offset the loss of revenue by the media.
Former health minister Adhyatma, one of the pioneers of anti- smoking campaign in Indonesia, said that lobby's spending pales in comparison to the huge funds tobacco producers are spending on advertising.
Judith MacKay, the director of Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control, told the Post the state of Victoria in Australia has introduced a compensation system for sports.
"What they [the state] said was there would be no tobacco sponsorship in the sports. We will impose five percent extra tax duty on cigarettes and give that money to the sports organizations so they will not suffer a major financial setback," MacKay said.
The Tobacco Alert also reported that the Victoria state has adopted a system by which five percent of the taxes levied on the wholesale price of tobacco products is allocated to the setting up the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation.
Mackay, who said her name is included in a list of "the most dangerous threats to the tobacco industry", said that Indonesia should also set an anti-tobacco legislation. (arf)