When a senior journalist died here in 2003 of lung cancer, colleagues were surprised -- to their knowledge, Annie Bertha Simamora of the Sinar Harapan daily was not a smoker. Suspicions were high that she was a victim of overexposure to smoke.
Passive smokers are still invisible statistically. The Health Ministry estimates 57,000 smokers die of diseases related to their habit but the data does not take passive smokers into account.
The country's economy also feels the pinch of the smoking habit, with an estimated Rp 90 trillion (US$9.87 billion) annually, or 13 percent of the state budget for this year, spent on medical efforts to prevent or cure tobacco-related illnesses. As most of the unhealthy smokers are those at the productive age, the financial burden Indonesia has to shoulder is heavy.
Studies in several countries, including here, have found that most smokers are poor people and that the smoking habit correlates with poverty, as noted in the World Health Organization report Tobacco and Poverty: A Vicious Cycle issued in 2004 in conjunction with World No Tobacco Day.
As for Indonesia, the 2001 Social and Economic Survey revealed that cigarette consumption accounted for 2.5 times the family spending on education and 3.2 times the spending on health among the lower income bracket.
This picture will look more gloomy in the coming years if no radical action is taken.
That's why the initiative of the House of Representatives in proposing a bill that will impose stricter controls on tobacco deserves support from the government and the public.
The lawmakers cite the growing number of young smokers as the reason behind the move. Central Statistics Bureau data reveals a nine-fold increase in the average number of smokers aged below 10 years old in 2003 from 3 per 1,000 children in 1999.
Such a rationale is more justifiable because more children are involuntarily inhaling tobacco smoke, which contains a complex mixture of more than 4,000 chemical compounds, including at least 40 known carcinogens, or cancer-causing agents.
Children, with whom we entrust the hopes of the nation, are the most vulnerable to cigarette smoke. Unlike adults, the young have little choice whether to live in a smoky environment.
The World Health Organization has estimated that nearly 700 million, or almost half of the world's children, are exposed to tobacco fumes by the 1.2 billion adults who smoke.
More than 140 million Indonesians are smokers, making the country the fifth-largest tobacco consumer in the world after China, the United States, Japan and Russia.
The classic defense of the industry looks at the likely impact of tobacco bans and regulation tightening on its large workforce and their families. The anti-tobacco lobby, meanwhile, balances the losses to industry against the greater public good.
It's this debate that has split the decision-makers in the government on the campaign against tobacco. The Trade Ministry, Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, Industry Ministry, Agriculture Ministry and Finance Ministry have been building an alliance against the Health Ministry to prevent the government from signing the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. At least 168 countries have signed the convention, but only 62 of them have ratified it.
Tobacco firms insist in their defense the industry employs 5 million people and indirectly provides jobs for 20 million others. The industry is also only second to oil and gas sector in its contribution to public revenue, with Rp 38 trillion (US$4.16 billion) in tobacco excise duty alone expected to go into state coffers this year.
The lawmakers propose this excise duty be raised to 65 percent, with 10 percent of that amount allocated for research on tobacco-related diseases. Meanwhile, all forms of tobacco advertising and sponsored events would be banned and cigarette-labeling based on tar and nicotine content would be prohibited.
Certainly the bill paves the way for tighter control of the sector, which may hurt the industry and the people dependent on it. But as far as the experience of other countries is concerned, there is a need for courage to make a start.
Lawmakers and others involved in efforts to save the country's people and children from the dangers of tobacco will require the government's political will to succeed.
Signing the convention would be an ideal start.
