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City high schools declare war on smoking
The Jakarta Post , JAKARTA | Fri, 04/03/2009 10:43 AM | City
Jakarta high school communities will form the front line of anti- smoking campaigns, following a declaration to clear school grounds of cigarette smoke.
Principals from 116 states, 62 vocational and 16 Islamic high schools signed the declaration Thursday to protect every member of school communities from exposure to cigarette smoke on school grounds.
Huzna Zahir, head of the Indonesian Consumer’s Organisation (YLKI), said that all members of school communities — teachers, employees, students, parents and guests — must make an active effort if they are to free schools from cigarette smoke.
“Not only by putting up no-smoking banners and stickers, but by building understanding of
the dangers of smoking,” Huzna said on the sidelines of a workshop for high school principals on the enforcement of no-smoking areas (KDM) areas.
The measure is based on a 2005 gubernatorial decree on smoking in seven places: Health facilities, religious buildings, schools and campuses, childrens playground, on public transportation and in public areas and work places.
Three years have passed since the decree but many schools still see their teachers and parents puffing away on school grounds. Some schools, however, have fared better than the others.
A high school in Lubang Buaya, East Jakarta fines anybody caught smoking in the school Rp 50,000 (US$4.5).
“Its a small sum but its effective,” Ferdinand, principal of the school, said. A survey conducted by the Indonesian Association of Health showed that 83.5 percent of 13-to-15- year-olds in Jakarta are directly exposed to cigarette smoke.
Handoyo Wiyoto, vice principal of SMA 73 high school in North Jakarta, said that the past two years have seen a gradual change in smoking habits. “In the teachers room where smokers usually spend their time, the heavy smokers have stopped smoking,” he said.
He said this could be attributed to campaigns from several organizations and persuasive approaches from colleagues.
He said SMA 73 gives students caught smoking study tasks which they have to do in a special room.
In July 2008 the Indonesian Smoking Control Foundation (LM3), YLKI, the Coalition for a Healthy Indonesia (KUIS) and the Urban Residents Forum (FAKTA) filed a legal standing against the government to ratify the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC), which has been ratified by 162 countries.
Wednesday saw the coalition loose its 25th battle in the case.
YLKI data shows that the country spent Rp 180 trillion on health care for smoking-related illness in 2005, 5.1 times the amount of state income generated from cigarette tax. (iwp)
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Gene Netto (not verified) — Fri, 04/03/2009 - 9:53pm
Perhaps this is a good way to start, but hardly seems like a “war”. I think that most of the smoking done in schools is being done by teachers rather than students as students generally do more smoking outside of school than they ever do in school. The war might be more effective if it had a more focused and comprehensive plan of attack. The first goal should be to get 99.9% of teachers to stop smoking. Perhaps principals could offer some kind of incentive for teachers who manage to quit. Of course, the non-smoking teachers would have to be committed to help out as well. Once the teachers are not setting such a bad example, hopefully it will be easier to change the kids.
For the students, the staff could hold random bag searches looking for cigarettes as many poorer students would not be buying a new packet every day, and so they would have to carry packets of cigarettes to school in order to smoke on the way home. (But unfortunately kids can also buy individual cigarettes at a stall, even though it’s illegal, so bag searches might not work). They could also be a ban on lighters and matches as there probably aren’t many reasons for having matches at school if you are not a smoker.
Any students caught smoking could be given community service in a cancer ward of a hospital, and be forced to talk to people who have lung cancer. Actually seeing the effect of a lifetime of smoking might make a strong impact on some students. That could then be followed by a 2000 word handwritten essay on the dangers of smoking. And the essay task could be repeated every month for a 3-4 month period to make sure that the message gets through. (The teacher can easily check to make sure the text is different, and the essay must be handwritten to prevent copy-paste using a computer).
There is no easy solution to this problem. The government doesn’t do much to help as cigarette advertising seems to be increasing everywhere, rather than decreasing as I understand is the case in developed countries. Non-smoking children can also have an impact on smoking parents. A mother and her children can gang up on a smoking father and set rules for him about smoking, such as no smoking allowed in the house so the father has to go outside. No smoking in the car or during family outings and so on. If the mother and children stick together, hopefully the smoking father will eventually give up and quit smoking (it worked on my father).
So, with no teachers smoking, and fathers not being allowed to smoke near their own kids, then hopefully the desire of most children to start smoking in the first place will decrease. Only banning smoking in schools is a good place to start, but it is a very small gesture compared to the size of the problem. Someone needs to develop a more comprehensive battle plan as the war against smoking is much bigger than the boundaries of the school walls.
Gene Netto
Jakarta