Tobacco News and Interesting Information

Smoking in public is increasingly an act that is frowned upon in Indonesia. Like so many other nations around the world bans on smoking in public places have come into effect, but the reality is that people often flaunt such bans and Indonesia is still a nation with a very significant population of smokers.

There are those that may say that people have a right to choose what they want to do in life, and with their lives, and so smoking is a right. This may be so but there are those who are not yet in a position to make an informed choice and so are deserving of our care and attention.

Children, quite naturally and particularly, are those that deserve our care and attention when it comes to the issue of smoking. Though teenagers and young adults may, practically rebelliously, claim that they are "old enough" to make decisions for themselves they rarely really are and worse still is the spectacle of younger children taking to smoking.

It is not at all pleasant to hear of the grim and very worrying statistic that, in recent years, the numbers of children under the age of ten in Indonesia that have already taken up smoking have multiplied at least five times over. These are children that are most definitely not in a position to make an informed choice and the sight of them smoking is practically an obscenity.

But the sight of such young children smoking is regrettably often seen on the streets of Jakarta. Often wearing their school uniforms, these children can be seen but a short distance from their schools. Recently a friend was so disturbed by seeing a group of school children smoking, none of whom was any older than 11 years of age that he approached them.

Reproachfully he told them that they should not be smoking; insisting that they were too young and that smoking would damage their health and -- in his words -- "stop them from growing up normally". But these young school children were scornful and they pointed to someone crossing the street who was also smoking.

They questioned why they should not smoke when this person crossing the street was allowed to. The person in question turned out to be one of their teachers; not hard to see the students following a teacher's example here.

This is surely a critical factor here. Young minds are impressionable minds and what they see adults doing they may and often do mimic, not least to give the impression that they are "grown up" and adult too. It has been estimated that as much as 30 percent of all doctors in Indonesia are smokers, which is a rather incredible statistic given that one would have thought people working in the medical professions would be the least likely candidates to be smokers. The figures for teachers that smoke may be similar or more.

In some schools teachers even join their students in a kind of smokers' corner for a cigarette and some apparent "relief" from the stresses and strains of the school day. This is hardly beneficial but good health education and giving students an understanding of the possible consequences of smoking can be.

Many schools around the capital have advertising hoardings outside of them that seem to almost proudly proclaim that they are drug free areas and that they are campaigning to stop drugs "ruining a generation". One wonders whether similar advertising could and/ or should be used around schools for smoking matters.

Jakarta is instead a city that seems infested with advertising for cigarettes. A friend recently arriving into Jakarta was coming into the city center on the toll road and commented on the vertical banners that festooned so much of the roadway. For her the banners were "so colorful and attractive" and she thought that they were representing some city festival or celebration. She was quite taken aback when she learnt that they were all to advertise local brands of cigarettes and she soon became less enthusiastic about the "colorful and attractive" banners.

But there is the point -- they are colorful and they are attractive and they do seem so consistently to be attempting to appeal to young minds. Featuring groups of smiling and very happy young people, they sometimes include cartoon-like characters that seem to very directly speak out to a younger generation.

Are young people influenced by this kind of advertising? It is hard to say for sure, but if it was not effective then why would the cigarette companies spend so much money on it and seemingly cover the city with the colors, brand-names and logos of its products?

Undeniably there are still millions upon millions of smokers across Indonesia and the kretek (clove) and other cigarettes have literally been a part of Indonesian life (particularly for men) for so long that the habit is hard to kick. But such a habit should not be forced upon the young and this is something that we all can and should recognize.

Indeed this is recognized in some, perhaps, surprising places around the world and this could be a lesson for the issue of smoking and the young here in Indonesia. One of the major American tobacco companies apparently has within its organization a "youth smoking prevention and cessation support department". Implicit to such a department is the notion that smoking is not something that we want the young to do.

Education can and should play a vital role here. Giving children in schools knowledge rather than simply commanding "don't do it!" is critical. With the extent of advertising that persists just outside the school gate, school children need to be informed so that they can see through such advertising and make the right choice.