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2 Smoke gets in your eyes in
Indonesia By Duncan Graham
JAKARTA - Lawmakers pushing for tighter
controls on Indonesia's rampant tobacco habit are
facing heavy-duty hostility from the
multibillion-dollar industry's powerful lobby
groups, which to date have ensured that the
country is the only one in Southeast Asia that has
not signed or ratified the World Health
Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control.
The House of Representatives is
drafting a bill to ban advertising and sponsorship
by tobacco companies, ratchet up taxes on
smokes, and boost medical
research on the health impacts of smoking, points
based on the WHO's convention. There may be some
fiddling at the edges of the law, but total
success seems highly unlikely.
The
proposed law is supported by 220 legislators, but
they're confronting awesome opposition, including
government departments that fear the loss of jobs,
taxes and investment. Indonesia has the region's
largest tobacco industry, employing hundreds of
thousands of people and generating billions of
dollars' worth of revenues.
Supporters of
the industry claim that it employs as many as 5
million people, a crucial source of jobs in a
country where unemployment remains stubbornly
high. Independent researchers notably have not
scientifically dissected that manpower figure and
statistics in Indonesia are always rubbery, with
those from government agencies particularly
elastic. Even former president Megawati
Sukarnoputri once publicly warned voters against
relying on official figures.
House of
Representatives member Hakim Sarimuda Pohan, who
chairs the committee drafting the tobacco-control
bill, has been quoted as saying new laws are
needed specifically to stop children from smoking.
He claimed that in the past five years there has
been a 900% increase in children under 10 years
old getting hooked, an extraordinary claim that
has been supported by the National Commission for
Child Protection. Its research shows that more
than 90% of young teens are affected by
late-evening smoke ads carried on mainstream
television.
Professor Mike Daube, a
34-year international veteran of global
anti-smoking campaigns and onetime chief executive
officer of Australia's Cancer Council, has
predicted a heavy rear-guard campaign by the
Indonesian tobacco industry aimed at protecting
its business interests as the bill approaches
parliamentary debate.
"The companies [in
Indonesia] will be claiming a loss of freedom of
speech and that sporting events and music shows
will vanish without their sponsorship," Daube
said. "Our experience shows that's just not true.
They'll use all the second-hand arguments that
have failed elsewhere in the world."
Indonesia has some of the slackest
controls on smoking in the region. Health
activists are almost silent, having been crippled
by punitive legal actions. They have
unsuccessfully argued that tobacco-company
sponsorship of television programs - including
newscasts - amounted to advertising in disguise.
Tobacco-related revenues are crucial to
the national finances, ranking as the
third-largest revenue source. On March 1, taxes on
cigarettes in Indonesia were raised by 7%, and
another hike of Rp7 a stick, or less than 1 US
cent per unit, is scheduled for July. Total
tobacco-related tax income is expected to exceed
Rp42 trillion ($4.6 billion) this year.
Yet by world standards, Indonesian
cigarettes are still ridiculously cheap and taxes
comparatively low. Australia, Malaysia, Thailand
and Singapore impose tobacco taxes starting at 70%
and rising. The top Indonesian rate is 40% - then
drops according to a complex formula based on
company output and manufacturing systems. Even
after this year's increases, smokes in Indonesia
retail for about one-fifth of the price of those
sold in nearby countries.
Smoky
streetscapes The streetscapes of
Indonesian cities are dominated by huge billboards
promoting cigarettes. Current laws already
prohibit
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