F

armers seek to stub out govt regulation
March 2, p. 5

With many wearing traditional hats, farmers swarmed on the House complex at 11 a.m., brandishing posters and chanting slogans condemning the government plan, which they said threatened the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of tobacco farmers across Indonesia. “Don’t kill farmers,” one poster read.

Your comments:
Those smokers of oversized cigarettes are too stupid to realize that they will end up with oversized cancer in a few years. Just because they make a living producing a product that kills millions is no excuse. There are other valuable crops that they could switch to.
While on the subject, why is it that the health disclaimer shown on TV cigarette ads has no minimum display time? One sixtieth of a second or so, they are on for guarantees that nobody could read them even if they wanted to.
Sheldon Archer
Probolinggo, East Java

The tobacco industry in Indonesia is the shame of the world.
The farmers are too poor to contemplate change.
The producers add cloves to make cigarettes even more addictive. Western corporations make billions both from the cheap tobacco and Indonesian smokers.
Indonesians are dying horrible deaths from cancer with no real public health service to care for them. The whole thing is a nasty
circus.
These farmers need to be helped to find alternative crops. It is not good enough just to make cigarettes less appealing by putting the odd health warning here and there.
Adipex
The United States