C

igarette packages in countries like Singapore and Australia show ghastly close ups of the effects of chronic tobacco use on our bodies. In Indonesia, however, smokers simply fish out a cigarette without looking at the package. Raising taxes, the World Health Organization (WHO) states, is still the most effective way to reduce smoking rates.

This is what Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi has been aiming for; to reduce the numbers of regular smokers as well as passive smokers nationwide, a figure that the 2011 Global Adults Tobacco Survey sets at almost 80 percent.

Though she aimed to have Indonesia ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) before the New Year, she has had to concede defeat.

Though Nafsiah is aware of die-hard addicts, she says raising cigarette prices would do much to discourage smoking among the poor who spend a large percentage of their income on food alone.

Her focus on the mission of the FCTC '€” to ensure that every person is held to the highest health standards '€” does not restrain her from issuing loud warnings regarding the loss of jobs that would accompany cigarette tax hikes, particularly among the thousands of farming families living in the highlands which are Indonesia'€™s main tobacco growing areas.

Nafsiah rightly urged the House of Representatives (DPR) against delaying ratification of the FCTC as lawmakers said they were still deliberating the tobacco bill. They denied her claims that the bill contained clauses effectively protecting the industry.

Given the mysterious disappearance of the clause on tobacco in the health bill, people have reason to be suspicious. Efforts to block the passage of legal restrictions on tobacco use are occurring in a number of places, with exporting countries, including Indonesia, claiming trade rights violations in their complaints against Australia'€™s drastic policy measure that bans prominent displays of tobacco products.

Such trade interests show inconsistency on the part of our government; we need to promote our products, but fighting to protect citizens'€™ health from tobacco-related diseases seems to fit uncomfortably with our fierce battle to protect our brands. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono reportedly told Nafsiah that he wanted assurances the government had '€œone voice'€ before ratifying the convention '€” and this doesn'€™t look easy. Our House representatives were the first to field questions on whom they really represented on health and tobacco issues. Although jobs will be lost, the presence of universal health coverage will mean that the economic cost of failing to curb smoking rates will be much greater, as the state would be paying for treatment of tobacco-related disease.

And with little inability to control retailers '€” the bulk source of profit for the industry '€” children also become part of what is already a vast market, as cigarettes are widely sold individually.

As the only country in the Asia-Pacific region that has not ratified the convention, it is no wonder so much is being done to stave off the potential loss of profits.