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Media key in challenging tobacco industry's narratives
Indonesia’s tobacco-control policy is toothless when facing the powerful influence of a giant tobacco industry.
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Smokescreen: A volunteer talks to a minimarket cashier about the dangers of cigarettes during a campaign against child smokers in Cengkareng, West Jakarta on March 7, 2021. The campaign aims to accelerate the government’s target to reduce child smokers to 8.7 percent of the smoking population in 2024. (Antara/Muhammad Iqbal)
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ndonesia has been infamously regarded as a “Disneyland for the big-tobacco industry”, a baby-smoking country and other demeaning terms. While ASEAN neighbors are taking up arms against the tobacco industry, Indonesia has preferred economy over public health.
The Global Adults Tobacco Survey 2021 shows a significant increase in tobacco users to 70.2 million people in 2021 from 61.4 million in 2011. Worst of all, smoking prevalence among children aged 10 to 18 years also increased to 9.1 percent in 2018 from 7.2 percent in 2013.
Enforcing Government Regulation (PP) No. 109/2012 is not enough to discourage tobacco consumption and to regulate the tobacco industry.
“These figures show Indonesia failing to address the epidemic of tobacco smoking that kills over 200,000 Indonesians every year. This is unacceptable,” commented Tara Singh Bam, Asia Pacific Director of the International Union for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (The Union).
As the current policies on tobacco control are ineffective in Indonesia, the media play a critical role in holding the government accountable for effective tobacco-control measures, added Tara.
However, it might be easier said than done for the media to work on tobacco-related problems.
Indonesia’s tobacco-control policy is toothless when facing the powerful influence of the giant tobacco industry. “Working on these issues is delicate and risky,” explained Maria Hartiningsih, Project Multatuli’s lead editor of its investigative-reporting team, told participants of the 7th Indonesian Conference on Tobacco or Health (ICTOH 2022) recently.
