HEALTH: Tobacco Companies Have a Field Day in Indonesia
When it comes to smoking, Indonesia remains the last paradise for a puff in Southeast Asia. Those addicted to cigarettes can openly light up in public places without worrying about tough anti-tobacco penalties found in the rest of the region.
This reality has been shaped by the power of local and multinational tobacco companies on the archipelago of some 224 million people.
At the finals for the recent ‘Mild Live Wanted 2009′ countrywide talent contest, in the former colonial city of Bandung, competing musicians belted out their songs from around 3 p.m till midnight.
For Indonesia’s small, yet vocal, anti-tobacco activists, these concerts - billed to promote local talent - offered more than music to fill their ears. They were the latest in a string of publicity drives of the powerful multinational tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) in the country. . . .
The prospect of more deaths from this ”smoking epidemic” has still to move Jakarta, which is still to sign the world’s first public health treaty - the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which has been in force since early 2005.
By contrast, this treaty has been signed by Indonesia’s nine neighbours in the region, which include Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
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But in other forms of entertainment, the publicity for tobacco companies are more direct, revealed Kania during a telephone interview from Jakarta. ”There was a film for teenagers last year where one of the actresses, who is still in junior high school, was smoking in scenes.”
Such an effort to glamorise smoking goes to extremes, at times. ”There are so many scenes of people smoking in Indonesian movies where the camera even zooms in to show the cigarette brand,” adds Kania. ”There is no regulation like in other countries.”
It is little wonder why a regional anti-tobacco lobby has described Southeast Asia’s largest country as a ”cash cow” for the tobacco industry.
