I wish to respond to comments made by the Corporate Affairs Director of PT HM Sampoerna (The Jakarta Post, Feb. 7, p. 7) that his company supports the comprehensive regulation of the tobacco industry in Indonesia.

This comment is laughable. Indonesia, the fifth largest cigarette market in the world, is a cigarette cash cow as over 60 percent of its adult male population smokes. Sampoerna currently has the largest market share and delivers handsome profits to its owners, Philip Morris International.

Nowhere else in Asia does Philip Morris still enjoy such marketing freedom as it does in Indonesia, where it advertises on lamp posts, bus stops, gigantic billboards, TV and sponsors rock concerts. In Indonesia, the poor spend more money on cigarettes than on health and education combined. In a country with widespread poverty, this translates to about 50 million smokers spending, on average, 11.5 percent of their monthly household income on cigarettes.

The price of Marlboros in Indonesia is cheaper compared to other ASEAN countries. Philip Morris sells its popular brands in kiddie packs containing 12 sticks for less than R 10,000 (87 US cent) putting cigarettes within the reach of the poor. Cigarettes, when sold individually, are made affordable to children and the poor. This sales tactic is outlawed in neighboring countries where Philip Morris also operates.

It has been reported that 80 percent of smokers started when they were still minors. In Indonesia, the percentage of people under 19 taking up smoking increased from 68 percent in 2001 to 78 percent in 2004. The Global Youth Tobacco Survey 2006 found that one in four Indonesian boys, aged 13-15 years, are active smokers. Philip Morris' idea of regulating tobacco means stopping minors from smoking, putting up *No-Sales to under-18 years' signs in shops and ineffective textual warnings on packets - these measures are not affective at reducing consumption.

According to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the global treaty on tobacco, comprehensive regulations should include a total ban on tobacco advertising, promotions and sponsorship, 100 percent smoke-free public and work environements, a substantial increase in tobacco tax, rotational graphic warnings on packets - measures Philip Morris does not support in Indonesia.

Philip Morris refused to put an end to the *Marlboro Rock Orchestra,' a 15 city concert series that recently featured Slank. More tobacco sponsored concerts are lined up in Indonesia in February and March. Sampoerna is one of the sponsors of the Java Jazz festival in March, through its Dji Sam Soe brand. Sampoerna should adopt FCTC standards and stop all direct and indirect tobacco advertising and sponsorship of music and sports.

Sampoerna claims that to accomplish public health objectives tobacco control advocates and tobacco companies should work together. Surely Sampoerna knows that FCTC Article 5.3 states: "There is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco Industry's interests and public health policy interests.

The government should protect the formulation and implementation of public health policies for tobacco control from the tobacco industry to the greatest extent possible. Tobacco companies have caused the problem and cannot be part of the solution.

Mary Assunta

Jakarta

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