Selling smokes with
smut
Politicians debating a new Tobacco Bill might want to look
at the way the addictive is marketed.
Indonesia is one of only eight countries that’s neither a
signatory nor a party to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention
on Tobacco Control. That puts the
Republic way offside with the 180 states which ban or limit advertisements
promoting smoking, and prompts this question for parliamentarians:
Is the lawmakers’ priority the physical health of its
citizens, or the financial health of the tobacco industry?
Big adverts in public places linking a deadly product with good
times and sexual prowess sounds like debauched Europe, degenerate Australia or too-liberal
America - but surely not in upright, uptight Indonesia? Yet that’s happening.
Exposure of a workshop producing drugs to corrode young bodies
would provide a feast month for the media. There’d be leaks to TV stations of
raids, lurid details in tabloids pushing the limits of taste, and manufactured
outrage.
The sleaze-masters involved in marketing by shooting the
pix, hiring the models, writing the scripts, printing and distribution would be
publicly hounded before being convicted.
Yet suggestive smut is on display right now and few seem
concerned. Transgressors have no fear of
sudden bursts of Kopassus AK-47 fire; prisoners will not gulp cleaning fluid to
avoid interrogation.
Instead the guilty continue to work in high-rise comfort,
enjoy top salaries and get home early to their kids, for these people are nicotine
promoters - a protected species in Indonesia:
The untouchables’ job is to boost Big Tobacco and ramp sales by devising
ways to get citizens hooked.
They do this by shouting loudly that for around one US
dollar a packet consumers can find happiness, enjoy adventures, get great
girlfriends and snare success in the boardroom and bedroom.
Their quest is to find the images and phrases which suggest
these achievements without actually promising fulfilment.
The prominent, colorful and creative banners and billboards
that flank roads in the tobacco heartland of East Java can’t be ignored. They also mask views of Welirang, Arjuna,
Semeru and the other mysterious mountains so create visual pollution - but that’s
an issue for another column.
One of the latest slogans is ‘longer is better’ as though
the use of English mitigates the offence. It’s a variation of the old saw ‘size
matters’. Of course the ad highlights the length of the cigarette. Don’t snigger; what other interpretation is
possible?
Other posters say ‘Don’t Quit’. This captions a picture of a craftsman
striving for perfection. Any resemblance to the internationally-famous term for
breaking the habit and regaining health must be coincidental. Cheeky, eh?
The ‘account executives’, as they call themselves to mask
their grubby trade, are employed in an industry which is illegal in countries
where governments prioritize public health.
Indonesia is so wedded to tobacco promotion that it took its
big southern neighbor to the World Trade Organization in a bid to beat back Australian
laws enforcing plain packaging. Supporting litigants were the
Dominican Republic, Cuba and Honduras.
Although an official decision has yet to be announced,
Bloomberg News has reported a win for Australia. (American billionaire Michael
Bloomberg who co-founded the media group also funds an international campaign to
cut an estimated six million deaths a year from smoking),
If the WTO decision is confirmed, Indonesian health
authorities’ attempts to reduce harm from smoking will be strengthened. So will the companies’ resolve to fight
change.
Five years ago Australia became the first country to start
plain packaging. Since then Britain, France, Ireland, Hungary and New Zealand
have either followed or will do so soon.
Purchasing smokes in Australia today is like buying condoms
half a century ago – an almost shameful act.
Locked cabinets are opened only on request. The price of a pack will soon be AUD $40 (Rp
400,000), thirty times dearer than in Indonesia and a cost so high cigarettes
are now a prime target for burglars.
The plain packaging law – which Indonesia and its three
friends argued was a breach of trade rights - enforced bland brown wrappers
with small brand names and horror pix of sick smokers. The packs look grubby,
not something a sophisticate would want to flaunt.
Grim graphics are also required in Indonesia but the message
Peringatan Merokok Membunuhmu
(Warning – smoking kills) is tiny compared to the funtime images. Even more blatant is the sponsorship of music
shows by the tobacco companies.
Because these don’t directly name a brand the alerts don’t
get used. Elsewhere such promotions aimed at youth are illegal. Indonesia has banned tobacco promotion in the mass
media, and ads targeting minors.
This rule is ignored: The hipsters featured on the hoardings
may be over the age of consent, but their antics, like racing on office chairs,
are certainly adolescent. One slogan is barefaced: ‘Shape of New Generation’.
According to the Indonesian Health Department more than
two-thirds of males over 15 light-up to look manly.
Indonesia is the fourth largest consumer behind China, the US
and Russia. But while these and other heavy-user countries have signed the WHO’s
Framework, Indonesia has yet to find a pen.
Instead companies plan to double production so logically more
deaths will follow. Current estimates start at 244,000 a year and rise to more
than 400,000. Strokes and cancers are agonizing
ways to die.
Australia’s former Health Minister Nicola Roxon who
introduced the plain packaging law has been promoting tougher controls on the
world’s baccy barons.
She cites four key factors in medicos winning the fight – ‘smart
researchers, very professional public servants, recognised non-government
organisations and a skeptical media’ – meaning journalists have not always been
swayed by denials of damage.
In 2015 cigarettes were the second largest family expense after
rice, according to the Indonesian Government Statistics Bureau, with households
spending three to five times more on cigarettes than on education.
Another cause for concern?
(First published in The Jakarta Post 20 June 2017)
##
No comments:
Post a Comment