KILLING 'EM SOFTLY

Be a man, consume till it kills. It will        

 

                                               

 

The World Health Organisation’s No Tobacco Day last month had Australia announcing tough new ways to get smokers to quit. Next door the fag makers were doing the opposite.

 

Health Minister Mark Butler wants warnings on the smokes  and even more gruesome images on the packets.  Around 12 per cent of Australian adults smoke; the government’s goal is five per cent or less by 2030.

 

In the nation next door 67 per cent of adult males smoke and the industry is doing its best to ramp that number.  Health workers object but they’re as powerless as Australia’s anti-mining protesters.

 

Indonesia’s  Big Baccy matches the US National Rifle Association for arrogance, its up-you outdoor hoardings shouting in English: NEVER QUIT.

 

The ads are devilishly clever, double entendres on special. They show sweating men in gyms punching bags, tackling extreme sports and Nat Geo adventures. Such costly pastimes are beyond most Indonesians but the substitutes are just a kiosk away.

 

For under $2 anyone can buy a packet of smokes, available almost everywhere, whatever the addict’s age, though supposedly illegal for under 18s. Can’t afford a full box and desperate for a drag? Roadside stalls sell singles.

 

Indonesia is one of the dirty eight, the  countries  not in the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. That puts a wide gulf between the Republic and the 180 states which ban or limit ads for smoking.

 

East Java is tobacco heartland centred on Malang where this column is being keyboarded. It’s also an education city supporting 15 tertiary institutions. The Universities of Malang State and Brawijaya (around 90,000 enrolments together) plus high schools spill their impressionable youth onto a major road leading to the CBD.

 

At the first traffic lights they rev throttles before a monster billboard.  It shows a fella playing an arcade game admired by a coy girl:  ‘Perfect combo - win the Queen’. Learn the lesson lads:  Score with smoking - it’s cool.

 

It’s illegal to show the product so foreigners wouldn’t get the hints till they spot a tiny pic at the bottom of an oldie with a tracheotomy.  This is a hole through the throat and into the windpipe so the sad sick man can breathe a little longer.

 

The compulsory warning has no impact. In Australia the messages are going to be updated and on the cigarettes because users have become desensitised.

 

More than two thirds of Indonesian men smoke according to health campaigners. The good news is that only three per cent of adult women are users, largely because the habit is culturally linked to prostitution. 

 

Muslim scholars who damn booze everywhere have only  declared smoking and vaping haram (forbidden) in public. Something more confronting than irony is needed.

 

According to UNICEF tobacco is Indonesia’s second biggest risk to health: ‘There are 600,000 premature deaths annually due to exposure to cigarette smoke, 28 per cent of which are children.’ Getting this horror to register with authorities is as tough as persuading US Republicans to back national gun control.

 

Indonesia is projected to lead the world in wheezer percentages by 2030. At the moment it ranks behind China and Russia. While some nations think well-being more important than company profits, Indonesian firms plan to boost output. 

 

That means building a replacement market as the druggies cough their way to graveyards. So the kids need to lose their innocence to La Nico Tine, the greatest seductress since Cleopatra. 

 

Apart from larger genitalia, pimply boys want fun minus accountability, loyal mate, big-bust girlfriends and full wallets. Few are so lucky in a nation where almost a third are seriously poor. So the ‘new generation’ inhales to find ‘satisfaction’ and ‘get ahead’. 

 

The pictures show slim and suave models doing macho things impossible for those with emphysema.

 

For up-market customers, there’s The Diplomat, its message straight to the universal searching for self: ‘I chose, I live.’ The wording is enhanced by curly calligraphy. It uses English to suggest sophistication though few are fluent.  

 

The current price war has pack contents changing to suit all lung diseases. A dozen starting at Rp 12,000 ($1.20) up to Rp 30,000 ($3) for twenty. 

 

The average monthly wage in Jakarta is around $ 870, but half or less in the provinces. Fags are the third biggest household expense after ‘prepared foods’ and ‘cereals’, mainly rice.

 

The wraps are colourful, not plain as in Singapore and Australia. The four hoarse men of the apocalypse of addiction, Cuba, Indonesia, Honduras and the Dominican Republic challenged the West’s concern for consumers in the World Trade Organisation. In 2018 their efforts to keep attracting and killing got stubbed out.

 

Tax on tobacco in Indonesia is around half the base price; the WHO wants it to be at least a third as this is ‘the single most effective and cost-effective measure for reducing tobacco use.’

 

The tobacco industry reportedly employs about six million Indonesians. The government, fearful of the corporates throwing thousands of young women out of factories and incomes wilting for leaf farmers, treads nervously when an election is nigh. The next will be in February 2024.

 

The major traders in toxins are Hanjaya Mandala Sampoerna (owned by the US company Philip Morris), Gudang Garam and the Djarum Group. To decontaminate their image as mass poisoners they run ‘foundations’, though always retaining brand names.  

 

Sampoerna even has a ‘university’ as part of its ‘corporate social responsibility’ programmes. Satire? Sadly, no.  Prominent in the mainstream media is Djarum promoting sustainability. Its logo is a green tree in a brown hand. It should be a rotting lung in a surgeon’s glove.

 

The brand is owned by Indonesia’s two richest men, Robert and Michael Hartono who started the ‘foundation’ in 1986. Forbes magazine estimates the brothers’ net worth at US $42 billion.

 

The company makes the wildly popular kretek, a mix of tobacco with clove oil and buds which crackle when smoked.

 

The ad gurus have refined ways to bypass prohibitions. Commercials can’t be shown on TV before 9.30 pm when the littlies are supposed to be abed. But this law doesn’t apply to outdoor screens which start up at 6 am -  in time for the school rush.

 

For the health lobby 31 May was an important day to help stop smokers suiciding, which the Australian government delivered. To Indonesia’s tobacco industry and its slaves it was a reminder that this is  no time to quit killing.

 

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  First published in Pearls & Irritations 6 June 2023:  https://johnmenadue.com/be-a-man-consume-till-it-kills-it-will/

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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WHERE THERE'S SMOKE THERE'S POWER

 

                                 Cancer?  It’s a giggle

 

 

It isn’t accidental irony but a deliberate insult from Big Baccy – two fingers to the government, medicos and public health pros. Just above the small government warning on the ad banner’s bottom corner showing a tracheotomy is the latest buy-line: ‘I choose, I live’.

Indonesia’s tobacco lobby is so powerful it makes the combined forces of fossil fuels, pharmaceuticals and the arms industry in Australia look like the efforts of a Save Something collective run from an inner-city squat.

As transnationals (the top two are the US Philip Morris and British American), they treat Indonesia’s democratically elected government with undisguised contempt.

The few health rules are cleverly bypassed.   MILD was banned so the word became MLD with the downstroke on the L in bold.  The term ‘Quit’, widely used in the West to help addicts, has become warped to ‘Don’t Quit’ under pictures of sweaty athletes, so fit they’re clearly not users.

Slogans in English, much like French phrases in cooking and fashion, are supposed to add modernity and authenticity.  Common are ‘bold’ and ‘dare’.

Cigarettes can’t be shown, so one ad showed a stack of white cups with the top one frothing.

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.

The gallants’ exploits dashing up mountains and crashing down heavy waves are also shown on outdoor screens in central city locations, day and night.  Students heading to school must wonder how many packs they have to buy before their drab lives transform into adventure.

A few cities – usually with no fag factories in their bailiwicks - have banned outdoor advertising, but overall Queen Nicotine rules the Republic of 270 million.  The WHO says research indicates smokers have a higher risk of contracting Covid-19, which seems logical as the disease attacks the lungs.

Indonesia has close to 200,000 confirmed cases and 8,000 deaths, but medical experts and statisticians allege the real figure is probably four times greater as official data collection is error-prone.

Surveys show users claim they need the drug to reduce ‘stress’.  That could include worrying about health activists making their habit more frightening and costly.

Indonesia is one of only eight countries 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 ban or limit ads promoting smoking.

 Smokes are supposed to be sold only to those over 18.  Big supermarkets usually comply, but small traders don’t.  Then there are the illegal home-mades kept under kiosk counters. There are reports that 30 per cent of boys started the habit before they’d grown pubic hair.

The awful stats, all drawn from credible sources like the WHO, the Indonesian Health Ministry, National Commission on Tobacco Control and other authorities, underpin these claims:

• The annual death toll from smoking is estimated at half a million. 
• Macro-economic losses from cigarette consumption are four times higher than the tobacco excise.
• Most smokers (63 per cent of adults) are men.  Women rarely indulge, and not just because they’re smarter and more health-conscious.  The culture labels them prostitutes.  Work it out – smoking men are heroes, women harlots.

These facts are ignored by the local industry (the fifth largest in the world) when it orders the government to butt out of business.  Instead, it highlights points like:

• More than ten million are directly and indirectly employed in growing, harvesting, processing and packaging.  Most factory work is done by women.  In Surabaya, tourists are invited to admire their dexterity.

·        Taxes imposed on the industry aid the economy

·        The companies are benevolent corporate citizens, helping with pop concerts, education scholarships and sporting grants.

Although the ads show slim hotshots in corporate offices, the reality is that it’s the ordinary folk who are the big users and losers. Even day labourers earning less than ten bucks a day think they need to show their manliness. One brand has developed a ‘waterproof cigarette’ for use by fishermen and sailors

Indonesia has universal medicare but it’s suffocating.  Though major employers pay their workers’ premiums, others have to buy.   Many can’t, so rely on herbal cures and relatives’ savings should sickness hit.  Tax reformers favour a system similar to Australia’s where cover is included in the personal income tax, arguing that a boosted excise on smokes should go to health care.

A government ‘Development Plan’ to ban ads, enlarge the health warnings 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.  They’re currently around 35 per cent.

The ‘Diplomat’ brand featured at the top of this story costs AUD 1.60 for 16 sticks, and it’s not the cheapest. In Australia a pack of 25 nudges AUD 40.  Our 2.5 million smokers put about AUD 17 billion into the Treasury every year.  In Indonesia, 60 million with yellow-stained fingers contribute a similar amount.

Those who aren’t Koranic scholars wonder why Muslims are allowed to use tobacco.  Intoxicants and substances that harm the body are said to be haram (prohibited) but the tobacco industry seems even more powerful than religious jurists.

The Majelis Ulama Indonesia (the law-making body of Islamic scholars) has set new standards of hypocrisy by declaring smoking in public or near pregnant women haram. If the savants know tobacco damages health it should be banned for all, but the likelihood of widespread and open non-compliance would undermine the old men’s other edicts.

Hooked users shrug off the government health warning Peringatan merokok membunuhmu (smoking kills you) like motorcyclists ignore traffic lights.  Anecdotes trump facts:  All inhalers know a Grandpop who smokes two packs a day and still pedals a pedicab.

 

As the world leader in combating tobacco use, we are loathed internationally.  Indonesia (in reality Philip Morris) plus four other states challenged Australia’s plain packaging laws at the World Trade Organisation and lost.

 

To be a smoker in Australia you have to be rich or stupid – or both.  The ugly sight of addicts huddled in rain-swept car parks is enough to encourage abstinence.  Shame is a powerful controller of behaviour in Indonesian society, but smoking has yet to make that grade.

 

First published in Pearls and Irritations 9 Sept 2020:
https://johnmenadue.com/coughing-up-a-smokescreen/