I

refer to a comment made by Fred Frogley on the Topic of the Day: '€œPictorial warnings on cigarette packets,'€ published in The Jakarta Post on July 1. Everything is '€œchemical'€. When you burn plant material in a cigarette, a large number of chemicals are released and formed, and it is these reactive molecules that are the danger. All smoke, even '€œnatural'€ smoke, is dangerous to your health.

The main additive used is ammonia, used to make the nicotine more addictive. But it is not just the additives that cause disease.

Your interesting little anecdote about smoking for thirty years and it not having done you any harm is quaint, but statistically irrelevant. You are just one data point. I would suggest that the French attitudes you describe might have more to do with cultural bias, '€œtradition'€ and, simply, cost.

Graphic pictorial warnings depicting disease and death work. The cartoon with the two skulls watching a man smoke is silly. What does it show? It could be interpreted as a show of '€œbravado'€. Taxation and penalties for selling to minors also work.

But the number one effective measure? Curtail or stop advertising. Start by removing it from TV, especially during the hours when children are exposed to it.

John Elliott
Jakarta