Govt Pro-Cigarette Industry, Says Observer

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Kartono Mohamad, an advisor with the Tobacco Control Support Center, said the government was presently more pro-tobacco industry. “The government is in fact protecting smokers nowadays,” he said at Sahid Hotel on Tuesday, April 28, 2015.

Kartono said among the examples was the relatively-affordable cigarette prices. “People from the lower class and children can buy them. That’s dangerous,” he said.

According to Kartono, the government should issue policy on cigarette prices and increase them to a minimum of Rp50,000 per pack and impose higher excise duty on cigarettes, which he believed would make people from the lower class and children to think twice before purchasing cigarettes—thus lowering the number of the country’s smokers.

“The number of smokers will decline, and the state’s revenue from cigarette excise duty will be bigger,” he said.

The second example Kartono mentioned was about the pictorial warning that appeared to be intentionally covered by excise bands on cigarette packs, making the health message somewhat obscure.

The third example, he went on, was when Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Edhy Purdijatno summoned the Jakarta and Bogor administrations in light of the regional governments’ ban on cigarette ads.

“Why did the minister meddle with the regional governments’ regulations? That kind of regulations should’ve been supported,” he enthused. 

MITRA TARIGAN