DON'T QUIT - DIE

 

Indonesia’s dying industry keeps lighting up   

This outdoor screen in central Malang runs cigarette commercials day and night - though these are banned on TV till after 9.30 pm
       

         

Where there’s smoke, there’s sickness. And clouds of money.

A tobacco price affray is underway in Indonesia triggered by a tax increase of 12.5 per cent with companies developing new sales pitches and crushing quality to soften the blow. Some weird names (Scorpion, Bolt) are priced at Rp 8,000 (AUD 0.73) for a dozen, though the sticks are thin and contents loosely packed. 

The top internationals retail for around $2 for twenty ciggies. Can’t afford but still keen on cancer?  Just buy one.

In Australia prices are high, controls rigid and obstacles widespread. Trade journal Tobacco Reporter has a 25-stick packet of Marlboro Gold at $48.50 while the average 20-box sells for around $35.  Packs are plain and products out of sight at checkouts.  Promotions are illegal. Buyers can’t browse open shelves.

The low-prices paid by Indonesians keep them hooked to nicotine and manufacturers to profit.  The two richest men in Indonesia are the Hartono brothers, Robert and Michael, owners of the Djarum brand of kretek (clove) cigarettes plus other businesses.  According to Forbes magazine, their net worth is $52 billion.

A wee way down the list is Susilo Wonowidjojo ($7 billion) with Gudang Garam, followed by Putera Sampoerna ($2.4 billion).  He sells under the family name which translates as ‘perfect’. Then there’s the transnationals, Philip Morris and British American.

The number of Indonesians killed and crippled by their products – and those of other factories – is unknown.  Estimates start at 250,000 deaths a year. WHO research indicates smokers have a higher risk of contracting Covid-19 as the virus targets the lungs. 

US-trained Dr Soewarta Kosen works on tobacco control policy at the Indonesian Health Ministry. He’s calculated macroeconomic losses from smoking in 2015 were four times more than that year’s tax. 

 

This year excise is expected to yield 173.78 trillion rupiah ($16.5 billion), a sum just below the $17 billion reaped by Australia’s Inland Revenue from the diehard gaspers – around 15 per cent of all citizens aged over 18.

Kosen wrote: ‘Ironically, the household spending of the poor on cigarettes ranks third highest after fast food and rice, above spending on health and education.’ Indonesian tobacco use is proportionally the third highest in the world behind China and India. 

Almost two-thirds of adult men smoke, women less than five per cent, not because they’re more health-conscious (though probably true), but through shame; Indonesian culture labels a woman with a fag a prostitute. 

There are some warnings. Packs and adverts must carry the words Peringatan merokok membunuhmu (smoking kills you) which seems to bother few as the message is tucked away and frequently ‘forgotten’.  A photo of a tracheotomy isn’t effective because the unnamed man’s story isn’t told.

Coughers say they need to reduce ‘stress’, though keeping in with the boys is another factor.  On many worksites a pack gets used by all, a communal bonding of blokes through sharing.

Indonesia ranks fifth for production in the world and is one of only eight nations that’s neither a signatory nor a party to the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. That puts RI way offside with the 180 states that forbid or limit ads promoting smoking.

 

Visitors to Bali may not have seen billboards pushing smokes as they are blocked in some progressive towns. Giant signs continue to pollute the streetscapes in Javanese cities like Malang which have tobacco farms and factories in their region lobbying to keep incomes healthy.

 

 

The industry asserts six million are directly and indirectly employed in growing, harvesting, processing and packaging, with most work done by women.  That’s a powerful figure to frighten politicians from introducing controls that might threaten jobs.  However, the World Bank estimate of the workforce is nine times smaller.

 

 Sales are supposed to be restricted to those over 18.  Big supermarkets comply, but small traders don’t and fear naught, even selling single sticks.  Reports that 30 per cent of boys took their first drag before their voices broke are no surprise.

 

Just when lads are most impressionable they’re hit by images of cool guys, tops at sport and wallets full.  Sometimes svelte girls are added to ooh and aah. The pictures show one or three men, presumably to deflect ideas that a couple of blokes together might be gay.

 

The models’ gums are never yellow, their fingers unstained. They could dart down to another agency and star in a healthy living commercial with nary a cough or spit on the way.

 

Slogans in English include ‘Bold’, ‘Dare’ and ‘Don’t Quit’, a real up-yours to health campaigners as ‘Quit’ is widely used in the West to help addicts.

 

The super-slick TV commercials featuring daring studs challenging the wild can only be screened after 9.30 pm when impressionable kiddies are supposed to be abed. That regulation has been trashed by the use of open-air screens running day and night.

Slim hotshots in corporate offices and adventure heroes in safari jackets are fantasy figures. It’s the ordinary folk who are the big users and losers, even labourers earning less than ten dollars a day want to swagger. A ‘waterproof cigarette’ has been developed for fishermen and sailors.

 

Attempts to forbid ‘mild’ because it suggests less harm were stubbed out by printing ‘MLD’ with the upright on the second letter in bold print to look like ‘I’.

 

A government ‘Development Plan’ to ban promos, enlarge the cautions and curb sales to minors has been puffing its way slowly through the legislatures. The WHO wants taxes ramped to 70 per cent of the retail price. 

Some wonder why Muslims are allowed to use the drug.  Intoxicants and substances that harm the body are haram (prohibited) but the tobacco industry seems even more powerful than religious jurists.

Indonesia’s Majelis Ulama Indonesia (the law-making body of Islamic scholars) has vetoed smoking in public or near pregnant women.  If the savants know the habit kills and damages health, then logically it should be outlawed for all.

 

Despite the widely-known dangers Big Baccy isn’t heading to the graveyard.  Some are forecasting ‘huge growth’ worldwide in the next five years.

 

In Indonesia health warnings, ad alerts, higher taxes, religious rules and other deterrents just don’t work.  They’re all too MLD.

 First published in Australian Outlook, 22 October 2021:https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/indonesias-dying-industry-keeps-lighting-up/a

 

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INDONESIAN MEDIA INHALES

SMOKE SCREENING INDONESIAN JOURNALISM © Duncan Graham 2007

At a recent event in the Indonesian city of Surabaya organized by the East Java Regional Government, journalists were handed the standard media kits of brochures and statements in a thick folder.

Only later did I discover an envelope. Inside was 150,000 Indonesian rupiah – about NZ $ 25. Not much in the West, but for local reporters a useful sum making attendance worthwhile.

The two major national newspaper groups in Indonesia (Kompas and Jawa Pos) prohibit their staff from taking such payouts. These are usually disguised as ‘transport money’, and along with a good feed are bribes to write a positive story and ensure return invitations.

Although I gave the money back to the nonplussed government officials running the show I have some sympathy for those pocketing the cash. When their monthly pay is below NZ $300, and they see their less scrupulous colleagues stuffing their wallets, the temptation is great.

And it’s also part of the culture. Paying for services that Westerners think should be free, such as police investigations of crime, and having to grease the palms of public servants for permits and licences is commonplace.

If journalists are getting handouts from government departments and companies to put a positive spin on their reports, how trustworthy is the copy Indonesians read and the reports they hear and see? It’s a question the public is apparently now starting to ask. But first a bit of background.

For 32 years till 1998 Indonesia was in the iron grip of an authoritarian military-backed government led by General Soeharto. The media was rigidly controlled thorough publishing licences, restrictions on advertising and curbs on printing.

The censorship was well known. Creative scribes and sophisticated readers learned how to write and read between the lines in a few stories, but overall the media was bland and boring.

When Soeharto was forced to quit following street riots and a crashing economy, his successors dumped licences as part of the shift to democracy. Publishers went wild; print publications jumped from less than 300 to more than 2,000 before a reality check. Around 830 have survived.

According to Leo Batubara, a member of the Indonesian Press Council (IPC), about seven million papers are sold nationally every day – a tiny number in a country of about 240 million, so the market is wide open.

He also claimed only 30 per cent of print media companies and 40 per cent of the electronic media make a profit. But these figures are hard to prove or disprove as many publications are embedded in private companies with other agendas.

This boom has caught publishers short of quality journalists. The typical local reporter is young, enthusiastic, scruffy, ill-informed, badly educated and poorly trained. Men dominate. They often hunt in packs and feed off each other so copy is frequently generic.

The industry has also attracted idealists who publish their own little mags - and fringe dwellers with shonky credentials, operating like print paparazzi feeding off the envelopes and selling scandals to the infotainment mags.

The other growth industry has been in tertiary education. To take just one city as an example - Malang in central East Java, a town of less than one million, has more than 30 ‘universities’. Some offer froth and bubble courses in mass communications for wannabe TV presenters and comic book editors; few have credibility with hard-nose reporting or links to the industry.

Faced with these realities the IPC, which gets an annual government hand-out of 16 billion rupiah (NZ $2.5 million), wants to start its own school of journalism, citing public complaints about the quality of reporting as the motive.

Australian aid has been used to try and lift the hacks’ game, with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology holding workshops in the regions through the State-owned Antara news agency. Western Australia’s Murdoch University has also run a course for selected Indonesian investigative journalists.

(There may be opportunities here for NZ tertiary institutions that can balance theory with practice; Amris Hassan, the energetic new Indonesian ambassador in Wellington has been boosting trade and aid ties between the nations, and PM Helen Clark has been busy in the archipelago. This new-found interest in the Republic seems to be a bid to fill the gap caused by Indonesian public distrust of Australia and its support of the US in Iraq. When Indonesians think of the real or imagined enemies of Islam, NZ doesn’t rank.)

But whoever does the training it isn’t going to do more than embroider the edges if the sheet doesn’t get washed.

It’s not just the poor education standards, low wages and petty payouts corrupting the media that are the problem. The major threat to the impartiality of Indonesian journalism is coming from the big companies, and the tobacco industry in particular.

Indonesia is the only country in Southeast Asia that has neither signed nor ratified the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Indonesia has some of the slackest controls on smoking in the region. Health activists are almost silent having been financially crippled by legal action when they unsuccessfully claimed TV tobacco company sponsorship of programs – including newscasts - was advertising in disguise.

Cigarettes are cheap, taxes are low and recently introduced restrictions on smoking in public are considered a farce when no controls are put on smokestacks and fuming car exhausts.

Compulsory health warnings on smoke packs and ads are miniscule and wordy. Attempts by a few gutsy politicians to bring the country into line with nations who care for their citizens’ health are countered by tobacco tsars’ reminders that up to five million workers depend for their livelihoods on people staying addicted to nicotine.

The streetscapes of Indonesian cities are dominated by huge billboards promoting fags – sights not seen in most neighboring nations. There’s hardly a paper or magazine that doesn’t inhale the cash from these ads – and that includes the Weekender magazine produced by the prestigious English language daily The Jakarta Post.

Not surprisingly tobacco companies don’t like being portrayed as purveyors of poisons and killers of citizens. So they try to boost their image by seeming to be socially responsible. They also need allies in the looming war against health activists. What better way than cuddling up to the media and satisfying needs?

In Indonesia Sampoerna (the name ironically means ‘pure’), now owned by the US giant Philip Morris, has started seducing journalists. It has already hosted a media workshop in association with the Independent Journalists’ Alliance attended by reporters from 19 publications, including the serious current affairs magazines like Tempo and Gatra.

Now it’s funding media prizes with cash awards equal in most cases to six month's salary for the average reporter. These goodies are being delivered through a foundation that carries the cigarette company’s name.

Last December, at a swish function in a five-star hotel to hand out the cheques, journalists from around Indonesia were treated to some wise words about social responsibilities and the dangers of taking bribes. The media’s role in a democracy and the need for fairness, accuracy and balance were rightly stressed.

The problem is that this sage advice was coming from people of standing who were supping with the devil and had forgotten to bring a long spoon. They’d allowed their good names to be associated with one of the nation’s principal dealers of death and disease.

In many other countries, including Indonesia’s near neighbors, the Sampoerna media award show would have been a no-show – boycotted by journalists, unions and publishers with principles.

The weight of public opinion is tilting slowly against this manufacturer of a toxin that’s killing an estimated half-a-million Indonesians every year, but the media seems unable to kick the habit.

Yet despite these serious problems, Indonesian newspapers offer a far more lively and liberal read than the dailies in Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia that are little more than government mouthpieces. Indonesian legislators complain a lot, and may have muzzled some TV satire, but so far they’ve yet to reintroduce the Soeharto controls.

The current hazard is the tobacco industry. Dumping smoke ads may briefly damage the publishers’ fiscal health, but failure to quit scars the industry’s credibility.

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(First published in Pacific Media Centre 16 August 07)

SAMPOERNA MEDIA AWARDS

WARNING: FAG PRIZES ARE A MORAL HAZARD
© Duncan Graham 2007

Late last year print journalists from around Indonesia were treated to some wise words about social responsibilities and the dangers of taking bribes. The media’s role in a democracy and the need for fairness, accuracy and balance were rightly stressed.

The problem is that this sage advice was delivered at a dinner paid for by a manufacturer of toxins. It was articulated by people who were supping with the devil and had forgotten to bring a long spoon. They’d allowed their good names to be associated with one of the nation’s principal dealers of death and disease.

In many other countries, including Indonesia’s near neighbors, the media award show in Surabaya, East Java, where these speeches were given wouldn’t have been held – or it would have been boycotted. That’s because it was sponsored by a cigarette manufacturer – in this case Sampoerna, owned by the US-based Philip Morris.

The glitzy event, staged in a five-star hotel following a fine dinner, had some crass moments but was mainly a pleasant evening with sophisticated hosts. Mild, even cool. The winners collected cheques for Rp 18 million (US $2,000). For many this would have equaled six month’s salary or more.

Of course the whole lavish bun fight was staged for two purposes only:

First – to relentlessly push Sampoerna’s name and link it with standards of media excellence.

Second - to seduce wordsmiths so we’ll give the tobacco lobby an easy ride on the rugged road ahead. For the weight of public opinion is tilting the scales slowly against this manufacturer of a product that’s killing thousands of Indonesians every year.

At this point an interest has to be declared; I enjoyed the food and soft drinks. If that makes me a fellow traveler then I must wear the label. With shame.

Having confessed this sin it’s time to make amends – a job made a mite more difficult because I was the recipient of Sampoerna’s hospitality. No doubt my fellow hacks at the function already feel the same constraints. Never bite the hand that feeds you.

But bite we must if the media is to rescue its credibility from these nicotine-pushers operating behind smokescreens of corporate care. And the time to do it is now, because plans are underway for another media seduction this year.

Doubt not that the looming fight to bring Indonesia into line with governments that put the health of their citizens above the need to stay sweet with the multinationals is going to be rough and long. Unlike its customers the tobacco industry isn’t going to expire anytime soon – big profits are at stake.

However the fag-factories won’t use that argument. Instead they’ll highlight the loss of jobs and sponsors should the health professionals and their backers get their way.

These spoilsports and pleasure police (for that how they’ll be portrayed) want all tobacco advertising banned, taxes bumped up and a raft of other controls imposed.

These may well cripple the tobacco industry; they should also stop millions of Indonesians getting crippled by heart and lung diseases.

This is the media’s fork in the road; do we accept or reject the medical claims that cigarettes kill and maim?

If we reckon the 12 warning words on the bottom of every pack sold in Indonesia are a health hoax then we’d better start researching the evidence and publishing the facts. (The French aren’t so mealy-mouthed. They say it straight: Smoking Kills.)

However if we accept these warnings are soundly based and properly made then we have a duty to alert consumers. But who’ll believe we’re not pulling punches if at the same time we’re taking the tobacco lobby’s goodies?

No responsible reporter would promote illicit drugs or go soft on this ghastly trade. Yet if the scientific evidence accepted by the World Health Organization is correct, the chemicals in cigarettes kill far more than illicit drugs and bring misery and poverty to millions.

Sampoerna wants its media prizes to become an annual event and has already called for nominations for this year's awards. The Poison Pulitzers?

Extinguishing that ambition is easy. Journalists' unions and the national Indonesian media chains like the Kompas-Gramedia network and its affiliates and the Jawa Pos Group need only blacklist tobacco company prizes.

That shouldn’t be difficult; major employers already say they outlaw envelope journalism – the practice of newsmakers paying reporters to write favorable stories.

Without the mainstream media’s support the awards will have zero credibility. No professional would ever want to list such a tarnished trophy on her or his CV.

Quality journalism deserves recognition. Let’s find a sponsor – but one that doesn’t kill. The tobacco industry needs the media more than we need their blood money and smarmy sycophancy.

It should butt out of our business.


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KICKING THE INDONESIAN HABIT

TOUGH GUYS DIE HARD © Duncan Graham 2007

The United Nations has designated Thursday 31 May as World No Tobacco Day. A worthy idea – but one that's unlikely to have much impact in Indonesia, ranked five in the world for tobacco consumption.

For the figures are rising. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) more than 62 per cent of adult males in Indonesia smoke – up almost ten per cent in six years.

If current trends continue WHO reckons that by 2020 tobacco-related illnesses will be the world's largest single health problem, killing 8.4 million people a year. Half these deaths will be in Asia.

The figures are so big and consistent, the science so conclusive that no one seriously doubts that smoking cripples and kills. So why do people continue? Duncan Graham tried to find out:

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Solikia needed no prompting to tell his story – and pass on a warning.

The 70-year old rice farmer from Blitar in East Java had been admitted to Malang's biggest public hospital just five days earlier suffering from acute shortness of breath and chest pains.

The diagnosis wasn't good. He has emphysema and bronchitis. His lungs are irreparably damaged. His body is thin and frail as though he's come from an industrial slum, not a lifetime of open-air work in the country.

He was being treated with antibiotics and when his condition stabilizes he'll be sent home. His body has been so severely weakened he'll probably soon succumb to pneumonia and die.

Solikia said he smoked one and a half packets of cigarettes every day for more than 50 years. Doctors have told him that this is the reason he is now so sick.

"If we got all the packets I've used it would more than fill this room, it would overflow into the corridor," he said in short breaths at the Dr Saiful Anwar Hospital's lung diseases ward.

"My message to all young men and boys, to everyone, is never to smoke. If you feel the need, just suck a sweet or chew something. I started because all my friends, everyone smoked. It was just what we did. But I didn't know anything. Now I regret that I ever started."

Sitting on his bed he tapped his skeletal ribs with his left hand. The other he held up, palm first, as in a pledge: "I swear before God that I will never smoke again."

Discounting accidents and maternity cases, the four top reasons for seeking help at the hospital are upper respiratory infections, tuberculosis, asthma and lung diseases, according to pulmonary diseases specialist Dr Nunuk Sri Muktiati

"Apart from TB the others are all linked to smoking," she said.

"Ninety per cent of the patients I see are smokers. I want to be angry – but to whom do I direct that anger? Smoking is linked to masculinity in Indonesian culture.

"It's difficult to get the message across that smoking kills. I don't know how we can break the connection between smoking and being a strong man."

But she does know how to reach women. Most of her patients are men and they often bring their families to consultations and treatment. This gives Dr Nunuk the chance to empower wives and mothers to protect their children.

"The message I try to get through to the family is that the female head of the household must control what happens in her home," she said. "She should throw away ashtrays and tell guests who want to smoke that it's not allowed."

(A national survey conducted three years ago showed that most Indonesian men light up at home, exposing their families to carcinogenic fumes. The research estimated that 97 million people are unwilling passive smokers – and almost half are children.)

The X rays Dr Nunuk studies during her rounds are graphic enough, made doubly so when the surrounds are clinical. The lungs of a smoker with emphysema exposing collapsed tissue; the dreaded black spots. You don't need to be a radiologist to understand the pictures are death sentences with no appeals.

But there are other more soothing images, much easier to access. The billboards just 200 metres outside the sterile white-tiled walls show fit and happy young men climbing mountains, racing four-wheel drives into stunning scenery and generally having a jolly carefree time.

They're not shown smoking – that's illegal in Indonesia. Advertising mustn't carry pictures of cigarettes and must include a prolix health warning. But the link is clear: The good-life fantasies may be out of reach, but buying and burning thin rolls of tobacco leaf is a fine substitute for the unattainable.

Dr Nunuk also hands out brochures produced by the Association of Indonesian Lung Specialists. She's a past chair of the local branch.

Although providing useful information these are wordy and poorly illustrated leaflets that will never win design awards when ranked against the tobacco industry's smart and seductive ads.

Surprisingly Dr Nunuk isn't just battling timid housewives reluctant to stamp their authority across their domain. The hospital bosses seem equally unwilling. Although corridors and wards have No Smoking signs, the rules are not enforced – except in the areas directly under the control of Dr Nunuk and her like-minded colleagues.

"I want the campaign to create smoke free areas expanded," she said. "Everyone seems to think this is too difficult because of the culture.

"The labels on cigarette packets should be bigger and the message more stark. I understand that the government wants to get tax from tobacco and that many people make their living from the industry.

"My message to the government is that production should be curbed. The authorities should think about the benefits to the health of the community.

"Maybe we should be promoting the idea that men who stop smoking are strong – not the other way around."

Sidebar 1

WHAT IT COSTS

About ten per cent of total government revenue comes from tobacco tax. According to WHO figures, tax as a proportion of the total cigarette price averages 31 per cent in Indonesia – one of the lowest tax rates in the region.

Jobs in tobacco manufacturing make up one per cent of the total industrial sector employment. That's about one million people. Most are women.

This figure doesn't take into account farmers, field processors, transporters, sales staff, advertisers, retailers and others who directly and indirectly make a living from the tobacco industry.

The tobacco market is controlled by a few multinational corporations from the US, Japan and Britain. The value of tobacco leaf imports into Indonesia exceeds the value of exports by US $ 44 million.

(sidebar 2)

PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF

Despite the overwhelming evidence that lung cancer is the world's leading cause of preventable death – and that tobacco use is linked to 90 per cent of cases - there are even some doctors who don't get the message, effectively undermining Quit campaigns.

When your health care provider reeks of tobacco smoke his warnings of the hazards are worthless.

Dr Andreas Infianto recalled his time as a medical student in Bandung.

"About 30 per cent of my colleagues were smokers," he said. "It was part of the lifestyle. If we didn't smoke we weren't really considered to be men. Our culture and environment encourage smoking.

"Studying was hard. Smoking seemed to be the only thing that would ease the tensions and get rid of the problems. Then I got asthma and realized I had to give it up.

"But I know many doctors who can't kick the habit."

(Sidebar 3)

CULTURE SHOCK

Most Westerners who love this country can clearly recall their first moments on Indonesian soil. The sultry heat; the cacophony and the seemingly aimless crowds; the density of the roadside shadows and flickering lights offering hints of mystery.

Add to these images the smells – of burning cooking oil and kretek cigarettes. It's the distinctive and unique odor of the archipelago.

Airports are normally smoke-free. But in Indonesia the tobacco companies have thoughtfully installed glass-walled smoking rooms where nicotine addicts can huddle together in a strange ritual of slow asphyxiation.

The culture shock continues with the posters, banners and billboards. It's like going back in time, to an era when tobacco advertising was legal, a period recalled only by the elderly.

The streetscapes of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and other countries aren't polluted by such signage. Cigarettes cost up to ten times more than brands in Indonesia and in many cases aren't on open sale.

Supply to minors is illegal and the law is strictly enforced. Offending shopkeepers are heavily fined. Health warnings are stark and confrontational.

In France you buy a product that screams Fumer Tue (smoking kills) across one third of the pack. Singapore packets carry photos of sick people in hospital. In Thailand they show diseased gums and other gross medical conditions.

In Indonesia some brands carry sports' images. One has the slogan: The Real Man. The picture shows a Caucasian.

(Sidebar 4)

NO SMOKING AT MECCA

Could the addition of one word on cigarette packs help deter smokers? Muslim psychiatrist Dr Andri Sudjatmoko thinks so.

The word would be haram – meaning forbidden to Muslims, who usually check that anything they consume is halal – allowed. Even plastic bottles of standard drinking water carry the label halal.

"Islam prohibits the use of intoxicants and drugs," Dr Andri said. "No one is allowed to smoke at Mecca during the haj (pilgrimage).

"Nicotine is a highly addictive drug that affects the brain. People start with cigarettes; some then go on to use alcohol and illegal drugs.

"Smoking creates mood disorders. It depresses taste and affects concentration. Many know the risks but ignore them. I'd like to see a real anti-smoking campaign, something like the one now being employed against drug use.

"Fortunately few women smoke. (WHO figures show 1.3 per cent in Indonesia. In some Western countries women have overtaken men as smokers.)

"That's because of the stigma; a woman who smokes is considered to be a prostitute.

"In this country there's a strong link between smoking and masculinity. Fathers who smoke pass the habit onto their sons when they are teenagers. This connection has to be broken – that's the responsibility of the family.

"Education is the key. Research shows that most smokers have low education levels. The better educated the person, the less likely they are to smoke.

"This is a serious problem in Indonesia. It's complex and multi-functional and has to be tackled on many fronts – including compensation for farmers who want to stop growing tobacco."

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(First published in The Jakarta Post 30 May 07)
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