You start playing with fire when you smoke

You start playing with fire when you smoke

Alexandria Robinson, Contributor, Jakarta

It is an everyday sight around Jakarta, teenagers nongkrong (hanging out) on a street corner, puffing away on cigarettes.

Of course, smoking is not limited to teens in Jakarta. The World Health Organization estimates that 50,000 adolescents in Asia smoke daily.

Most of us are familiar with the risks associated with smoking; respiratory problems, cancer and heart disease being just a few. So why do so many Indonesian teenagers smoke?

Chris, 17, started smoking two years ago, and admitted it had a lot to do with wanting to be part of the in-crowd.

"I was bored over the summer and I went to the mall one day. My friends were smoking so I started as well."

Unfortunately for teenagers, people who start smoking when they are younger are more likely to become addicted to nicotine, the main substance in cigarettes. Once addicted it is extremely difficult to give up smoking.

For teenagers who want to feed their addiction, there is no shortage of cigarettes in Indonesia. And although there is an age limit for buying cigarettes in major supermarkets, people of all ages can purchase cigarettes from warung (sidewalk stalls).

According to a 1994 study conducted by the World Health Organization, Indonesia is the seventh largest producer of unmanufactured tobacco, with 137,000 tonnes produced each year. This contributes to a culture of acceptance of cigarettes in Indonesian society, even among people who recognize the health dangers.

While it is more common in modern Indonesian culture for males to smoke than females, with women smokers often seen as "rebellious", "easy" and rejecting the feminine norms, this is changing, particularly in large cities like Jakarta.

Now, in the capital, young women who smoke are often considered modern and chic, whereas males continue to use cigarettes to cultivate an image of masculinity and as part of their social interactions.

Within Indonesian society, smoking is more accepted than drinking alcohol or taking drugs, and does not carry the same social stigmas.

"Smoking is less hazardous to your health than taking drugs," Chris says.

In the world of teenagers, with its peer pressure and desire to conform and fit in, those who smoke are often considered hip and cool. Chris says smoking lends itself to a "glamorous sort of lifestyle", which is the kind of message tobacco companies work so hard to deliver.

One only has to look at a billboard advertising Marlboro as the cigarette of choice for rugged cowboys to see the sort of images being presented to the Indonesian public.

Philip Morris, the producer of Marlboro cigarettes and the world's largest tobacco company, uses internationally recognized American icons such as the Harley Davidson and the famous Marlboro Man cowboy in its advertising. These icons promote their product as a symbol of freedom, democracy and affluence, and it is easy to get impressionable people hooked.

That tobacco companies sponsor events that are primarily aimed at a teenage audience, such as dances and concerts, also suggests that they are subtly encouraging Indonesian teens to purchase their cigarette brands. The tobacco companies, of course, deny such accusations.

In the past, the Ministry of Education has conducted a number of antismoking campaigns throughout Indonesia. In March 2002 a campaign was begun to reduce the number of teenage smokers. It consisted of antismoking teams handing out information booklets and calendars promoting a healthy lifestyle.

But the effectiveness of these campaigns can be questioned, given that all of the teenagers interviewed for this story were unaware of any such campaigns in Indonesia.

However, they had their own suggestions about how to reduce the number of teenage smokers. These included increasing the price of cigarettes, enforcing the law that only those over the age of 18 can purchase cigarettes and increasing awareness about the risks of smoking.

The best solution to the problem of teen smokers is prevention. If adolescents are encouraged not to take up smoking, they will not have to travel the difficult and often futile path of trying to give up their addiction.

But what is the best way to go about "educating teens"?

The Ministry of Education might benefit from modeling an antismoking campaign on one introduced in Florida, the U.S., in 2000.

The campaign, called The Truth, was planned by teenagers for teenagers, and resulted in 80,000 fewer smokers. The secret behind the success of the campaign was that it was nonjudgmental toward adolescents, portraying the tobacco companies as the "bad guys".

Though many steps need to be taken before the number of Indonesian teenage smokers can be reduced, the best place to start is to enlighten teens about the huge risk they are taking every time they light up a cigarette.