T

he National Awakening Museum in Kwitang, Central Jakarta, once used by the Dutch Indies School for Native Physicians (STOVIA), was witness to a student movement that ignited a national consciousness to fight for the country’s independence back in 1908.

Some 108 years later, the building witnessed another breakthrough, as Noor Liesnani Pamella, 61, a businesswoman from Yogyakarta, was granted the 2016 Tobacco Control Award for her contribution to efforts to curb smoking in one of the world’s largest cigarette-puffing nations.

On Friday, the National Commission for Tobacco Control (Komnas PT) bestowed the accolade upon Noor, who refuses to sell cigarettes in the seven outlets of her supermarket chain Pamella in Yogyakarta.

Noor said, however, that she would still be selling cigarettes in her stores if her son, Subhan Khadafi, had not alerted her to the dangers of smoking to health in 1999.

“My son, who was pursuing his studies in Medina back then, said to me that smoking was dangerous and considered haram [unlawful] in Saudi Arabia. But I insisted that smoking was merely deemed makruh [odious, but not forbidden], seeing that smoking was normal in Indonesia,” Noor told reporters on the sidelines of the event.

She became more alarmed at what her son had said on smoking when she frequently saw health warnings in cigarette advertisements on billboards and television.

“Seeing the health warnings, I felt distraught, because I was contributing to people’s health problems if I insisted on selling cigarettes,” said Noor, who started her venture in the retail business in 1975.

But it was not until 2003 that the mother of five decided to cease selling cigarettes in her Pamella stores.

“When I went on the haj, my haj advisor told me that smoking was haram. His advice led me to stop selling cigarettes,” Noor said.

“Youths can contribute to the efforts to control tobacco consumption. I took the initiative to stop selling cigarettes from my son.”

Noor said she was disconcerted by the fact that a lot of Indonesians started to smoke as youths.

Currently, the country ranks fourth on the list of countries with the highest number of smokers, behind China, Russia and the US. But while other heavy-smoking countries are enforcing tough tobacco controls, Indonesia is planning to double tobacco production.

Indonesia already has the world’s highest smoking prevalence among the male population, with 67.4 percent of men and boys over 15 years of age smoking. The cost of treating tobacco-related diseases in the country is currently estimated at Rp 11 trillion per year, equivalent to 0.29 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The 2013 national Basic Health Survey (Riskesdas) revealed that three out of 10 smokers are between 15 and 30 years of age, while most start to smoke before they turn 19.

Komnas PT, which was established in 1998 by several NGOs and health activists, targets youths in its nationwide campaign to curb smoking, following an initiative by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to improve public health, including by decreasing the prevalence of smoking.

“We used that momentum to reassess our campaign. For years, we would only concentrate on saying that smoking could cause several health problems. As simple as that,” Komnas PT chairman Prijo Sidipratomo told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Prijo said, however, that he had so far seen no concrete policies from the President to address the issue.

“The most important thing to do for Jokowi is to sign the World Health Organization’s [WHO] Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. But it seems very difficult to bring about, probably due to divisions within the government over tobacco control,” he said.

He was referring to a move by the Industry Ministry that advocates doubling production from the 260 billion cigarettes stipulated in a previous decree to 524.2 billion in 2020. On the other hand, a 2013 Health Ministry decree stipulates several directives aimed at curbing smoking in the country. (mos)
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