Minister denies new cigarette regulation harms public's health

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Minister of Health Achmad Suyudi denied on Saturday that the government regulation (PP) on cigarettes had been revised to serve the producers' interests at the expense of public health.

"Instead, the revision is aimed at promoting a healthy lifestyle and protecting citizens from the negative impacts of smoking," Suyudi said as quoted by Antara.

The government, issued in 1999 a regulation on cigarettes which restricts the maximum content of nicotine and tar per cigarette to 1.5 milligrams and 20 milligrams respectively.

However, this month, the government quietly drafted a revised regulation, which omitted the maximum content of nicotine and tar. The revision obligated producers to merely check the quantity of nicotine and tar in each cigarette.

Last week, a group of 18 non-governmental organizations appealed to the government to drop the revised regulation on the ground that it would encourage unhealthy habits.

The minister said the protesters did not read the regulation thoroughly, as the revision required all cigarette ads and campaigns to disclose the amount of nicotine and tar in each cigarette and to maintain the warning label on the negative health impacts of smoking.

"The existing regulation only required all ads to insert the warning," he said.

Earlier, an official at the health ministry confirmed that it had revised the 1999 regulation, although it had not been approved by then-president Abdurrahman Wahid. The official declined to identify who asked for the changes.

The World Health Organization has estimated that the number of smokers in Indonesia amounted to 57 percent of the country's population, meaning that at least 100 million Indonesians are smokers.

The population of smokers in the world has reached 1.1 billion people, 800 million of who reside in developing countries, including Indonesia.