W

ith low cigarette prices, Indonesia remains a smoker’s heaven, a situation tobacco-control activists have tried hard to change.

Academics have asked the government to take a bold step and increase the price of cigarettes, in the belief that it is the most effective way to discourage people from smoking.

A survey conducted by the University of Indonesia’s Social Security Research Center (PKJS-UI) in May, which involved 1,000 respondents, showed that many people still think the price of cigarettes, which stands at around Rp 20,000 (US$1.30) per pack, is still affordable for almost anyone.

Renny Nurhasana, a member of the PKJS-UI research team, said that the study showed that 44 percent of respondents claimed the current price of cigarettes was normal, while 6.68 percent of respondents defined the current price as cheap.

“If the government really played their role to intervene in the price, people would really quit smoking. The price increase needs to be significant if we want to create an immediate effect,” Renny said during a press conference on Tuesday, “It would be more effective if the price was up around Rp 70,000 (US$4.86) per pack, but the government could start with Rp 60,000 this year.”

In their survey, 88 percent of the respondents said they would support the government increasing the price of cigarettes.

When the researchers asked 404 active smokers among the respondents, 66 percent said they would quit smoking if the price was increased to Rp 60,000, and 74 percent said they would quit if the price was set at Rp 70,000.

“So, the survey shows that they want to quit. It would be possible to make them quit if the government significantly increased the price,” she said.

Renny also said that increases in tobacco prices had remained below the average increase in people’s incomes. She cited a study from 2016 by the Center of Health Economics and Policy Studies (CHEPS) that called on the government to increase the price to Rp 50,000 to prevent people from easily purchasing cigarettes.

“At that time, the survey showed that 72.3 percent of smokers would quit if the price was increased to Rp 50,000. Now, only two years later, that price wouldn’t have the same effect on the smokers,” she said.

Recent data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows that the cost of cigarette consumption remains the second largest contributor to poverty in the country, behind only the increasing price of rice.

“It is not a mistake to say that smoking impoverishes people, because the facts are exactly that,” Ruddy Gobel, head of the communication unit of the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Alleviation (TNP2K), said.

“Instead of sending their children to school or buying nutritious food for their family, many people choose to buy cigarettes instead,” he added.

This situation, he went on to say, occurred because cigarettes were becoming more and more affordable each year.

“People’s purchasing power is increasing but cigarette prices have remained almost the same,” he said.

The trend, Ruddy said, showed that people from wealthier backgrounds had decreased their cigarette consumption because they were well informed and understood the consequences. Meanwhile, cigarette consumption among the poor was increasing.

According to the 2016 Tobacco Atlas, cigarette smoking kills around 225,700 people every year in Indonesia.