Another smoking kid in Indonesia

Ilham, who lives in Sukabumi, located in West Java, started smoking when he was four years old and now smokes around 25 cigarettes a day.
The young boy's habit was allowed to spiral as there are no age restrictions on purchasing cigarettes in the country, while his poor family have little awareness of the health risks involved.
Ilham said his mother, Nenah, gives him a small amount of money that he spends entirely on his smoking habit.
"My mother gives me 5,000 rupiah," he said, and, when asked if all the money was spent on cigarettes, he nodded.
Ilham's mother revealed that he no longer attends school as teachers do not allow him to smoke in class. She said the eight-year-old is liable to fits of rage if he is not allowed to light up.
"I have to let him smoke, otherwise he will get mad. He smashed the windows five times because I told him he could not smoke," she said.
Government statistics show that in Indonesia, cigarettes account for the second-largest household expenditure, after food.
Nearly one in three people in Indonesia smoke, in a population of 239 million.
[Source]

Forgive me for making a political point about this... but this is why I'm always skeptical of libertarians and the like whose dream is a society of pure capitalism unimpeded by the inherent oppression of government regulation.
Indonesia is an example of such an "anything-goes" place, and kids like Adi Ilham are the result. You can point to poor parenting, obviously, but this kid is the product of a society that puts virtually no restrictions on the tobacco industry.

Two other examples of what I'm talking about:

The famous footage of a two year-old Indonesian kid with a 40-cigarette-per-day habit.

The Indonesian abbatoir scandal.

The ineffectiveness of government and the police force make Indonesia something of a free-for-all. It's no surprise that mob rule is a common part of life. But I actually think it's testament to the Indonesian character that the country is as relatively peaceful, safe and friendly as it is.

How to mess up your kid. Correlation or causation?

(Reuters) - Children whose mothers smoked while pregnant were more likely to end up on medications such as antidepressants, stimulants and drugs for addiction, according to a study from Finland that hints at smoking's affect on a baby's developing brain.

While the findings don't prove that cigarette smoking during pregnancy causes changes in children's brains or behavior, they offer one more piece of evidence that should encourage women not to smoke while pregnant, the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Epidemiology.


One in 11 children was prescribed a psychiatric medication at some point during that period, including anti-anxiety drugs, antipsychotics, antidepressants, stimulants and drugs for addiction.


Of children and teens whose mothers didn't smoke during pregnancy, 8 percent were on at least one of those drugs during the study period. That compared to 11 percent of those whose mothers smoked fewer than 10 cigarettes per day, and close to 14 percent whose mothers had lit up more than 10 times a day.

This is pretty obvious, the only surprise is that it wasn't higher.

But it raises an interesting question for me. Does it actually prove that smoking while pregnant is the cause of the higher rate of medication?

Not really. I'm passionately anti-smoking and certainly believe that smoking while pregnant is a repugnant thing to do. But I wonder how much of this issue is actually correlative rather than causative.

Here's the thing: if you are the kind of person who smokes while pregnant, you are more likely than average to be a stupid, shitty parent. If you smoke more than 10 times a day while pregnant, you are even more likely to be so. Someone who is has a poor grasp of decent parenting, whether they smoke or not, is far more likely to raise a child with depression, anxiety and addiction problems.

I certainly think smoking while pregnant is physically damaging to the unborn child. But studies like this don't necessarily indicate it. It could just be that smoking is not the cause of dysfunction, but rather a reflection of it. So if you are smoking while you are pregnant, the chances are definitely higher that you will raise a problem child, but it may well be you, rather than the ciggies that did it.

Wolfmother pull out of tobacco-sponsored Indonesian music festival; then change their minds

Hirsute Australian rockers Wolfmother have pulled out of their appearance at the Java Rockin'land 2010 music festival. They were pressured to do so as a way of taking a stand against tobacco sponsorship - the major sponsor of the festival is Indonesian cigarette giant Gudang Garam.

And then they did a U-turn, and are back in the lineup. "This one is for the fans in Indonesia who have parted with their very own cold hard cash to see Wolfmother," it says on the band's website.

Taking place in Jakarta  from the 8th to the 10th of October, Java Rockin'land (a name that sounds kinda lame, but presumably sounds cool to Indonesians who don't speak much English) it is billed as the biggest rock festival in all of South East Asia. Other international bands still on the bill include Smashing Pumpkins, Stereophonics, The Vines, Dashboard Confessional, Datarock and Arkana.

Now it may strike some of you as PC-thuggery that bands are under pressure to pull out just because of who sponsors a certain concert. Particularly as 95% of musicians seem to be smokers themselves.

But be aware that the power of the tobacco lobby in Indonesia is in a completely different league to their counterparts in most Western countries, who have long had their activities curtailed by advertising bans, enforcement on purchasing, and high taxes. When a tobacco company sponsors an event in Indonesia, it's not just a matter of putting up a few banners; it means massive banners everywhere, and frequently, free cigarette packs handed out to attendees as samples.

It is estimated that around 70% of Indonesian men smoke. We should perhaps be thankful that traditional chauvinistic notions of proper female behaviour have meant that female smoking rates are low (less than 10%). But that just means that there is a burgeoning market out there for tobacco companies to tap into, and they are already targeting young people quite effectively.  Footage of 2 year-old Ardi Rizal puffing smoke rings like a pro caused outrage worldwide recently, and while that story clearly displays some damn shoddy parenting, it needs to be viewed in the broader Indonesian context. In terms of public awareness of the dangers of smoking, Indonesia is around 50 years behind most Western nations, and it is not entirely surprising that a father would think it no big deal that his baby smoked 2 packs a day. (Little Ardi has since quit, I think.)

Bands like Wolfmother are in a difficult position. The ubiquity of tobacco sponsorship means that it is very difficult for a big-name band to play in Indonesia without a cigarette company being involved in some way. And it would be sad for Wolfmother's Indonesian fans to miss out (dozens of them!), particular as some would have already paid for their tickets.

But there are other examples that show that a principled stand is possible. Both Alicia Keys and Kelly Clarkson have both played in Indonesia recently, and threatened to cancel their dates if Sampoerna (a division of Philip Morris) and LA Lights (part of the Gudang Garam empire) remained as sponsors. They got their way. Obviously a major festival such as Java Rockin'land is a more complicated proposition, given the sheer number of bands involved. But if they could get their act together and threaten a boycott en masse, imagine the message that would send to Indonesian health authorities and the entertainment industry?

That sounds cool and inspiring. Of course, nothing occurs in a vacuum; in a poor country in Indonesia, if tobacco companies are taken out of the equation, it would leave a massive gap in sponsorship which would not be easily replaced. And that would quite likely constitute a massive blow to entertainment and youth culture in Indonesia, which would suck. See? Things aren't always as simple as we would like.

The Indonesian 2 year-old who smokes 40 cigarettes a day

The baby's name is Ardi Rizal. He's from Musi Banyuasin in South Sumatra. And he's a 2-pack-a-day man.

I couldn't believe this was real when I first saw it... but then it IS in Indonesia. And knowing Indonesia as I do, it's actually not all that surprising.

Indonesia has many vices, but cigarette smoking is probably its most common. According to this article, the smoking rate amongst the population has risen in the last 20 years (from 53% to 60% of males). I've seen other estimates that it's closer to 70%. Compare that to neighbouring Singapore, where only around 30% of males smoke.

The reason for Indonesia's addiction? Free reign to the tobacco industry. Cigarettes are cheap, and there are few restrictions on cigarette advertising. Indeed, tobacco companies are ever-present as sponsors for youth events, and can enact strategies to snare young consumers that would be unthinkable in Western countries. And the government enjoys the tax income generated by all this consumption. The smoking rate is likely to increase as well, since traditionally smoking was considered unseemly for women. Yet as Indonesia continues to modernise, these old taboos fall away and young women, particularly in the cities, see smoking as a symbol of freedom and modernity. Hooray.

You can also blame kretek cigarettes. Kretek refers to cigarettes with shredded cloves mixed in with the tobacco - brands like Gudang Garam, Bentoel, Djarum and Sampoerna are the best known. The cloves give a slight sweetness that helps appeal to young people; no wonder then that the US recently passed laws banning them from sale there. In Indonesia however, they are the preferred cigarette of around 80% of the market. This is partly due to their cheapness - they are taxed at a lower rate, perhaps because Indonesia is a major producer of cloves.

The power of the tobacco lobby - not just the foreign-owned corporations, but also the many farmers in Indonesia - means that it is controversial to even claim that cigarettes are bad for you. We take it for granted that virtually all smokers in the West today know that it is a deadly habit, even while they choose to ignore the risks. But such knowledge cannot be assumed in a country like Indonesia.

So you can blame the parents - damn right, since his father first gave him a cigarette to try at age 18 months - but this is only the most extreme example of a nation-wide dysfunction.


UPDATE: Apparently little Ardi Rizal has been given some medical treatment that has reduced his habit to "only" 1 pack a day. So I guess that is sort of good news.