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Organda to support smoking ban  

The Jakarta Transportation Agency and the Organization of Land Transportation Owners (Organda) agreed Thursday to work with the Indonesian Consumer Foundation (YLKI) to promote a 2005 bylaw prohibiting smoking in certain public spaces.

The campaign will be implemented in the form of public advertisements at bus stations and aboard public buses.

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Smokers flout recent anti-smoking ordinance  

Many local residents were still seen puffing away on their favorite cigarettes in malls and other public areas as the Surabaya municipal administration started enforcing the bylaw against smoking in public places on Thursday.

Budi, a shopper at a mall, said Thursday he was unaware such an ordinance had been enacted last year in Surabaya.

Nor did he know that Thursday was the first day city residents would be prohibited from smoking in public places.

However, passive smokers and other residents hailed the enforcement of the no-smoking area and limited smoking-area bylaw.

They said they were "very happy" to have such a bylaw and hoped people would obey it to increase everyone's quality of life.

To promote and raise awareness about the bylaw's enforcement, a number of students gathered at several public places on Thursday in Surabaya, giving visitors candies in lieu of their cigarettes.

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Smoking ban bylaw not yet effective 

Surabaya Deputy Mayor Arif Afandi has urged public order officers to be strict and consistent in prosecuting people or institutions breaking the newly implemented bylaw prohibiting smoking in certain areas.

Arif said Tuesday there were still many public places in the city that had no designated smoking rooms yet.

"I find there is no significant effect yet from the implemetation of the bylaw, as I still see many people smoking everywhere," he said.

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Anti-smoking bylaw meets defiance in Surabaya  

Surabaya Deputy Mayor Arif Afandi is urging public order officers to be strict and consistent in prosecuting people and institutions breaking the new bylaw against smoking in public places.

"There were still many public places in the city failing to provide smoking rooms and allowing people to smoke freely," he said Tuesday.

"I find there is not yet any significant effects from the implemention of the bylaw," said Arif.

The Surabaya municipal administration put into effect the bylaw on no-smoking areas and limited-smoking areas on Oct. 22, 2008.

Arif also criticized the Surabaya Health Agency for the public's poor response to the bylaw due to a lack of awareness progams. . . .

Sukistio, 34, a resident of Surabaya, was seen smoking at the Bungurasih bus terminal Tuesday, defying a sign that prohibited people smoking there.

"I know there is a regulation banning people from smoking in public areas. But there is no smoking room here. So I opted to smoke here. I will get dizzy if I don't smoke, as I have controlled myself not to smoke for an hour during my travel here by bus," Sukistio told The Jakarta Post.

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Desta decides to quit smoking  

For Club 80s drummer Deddy “Desta” Mahendra, it was from his late father that he chose to learn.

“When my father was diagnosed with a cardiac problem, I immediately quit smoking,” Desta said as quoted by news portal inilah.com.

“His doctor reminded me that his illness was entirely due to his smoking habit. The doctor called me and asked if I also smoked.”

Desta then recalled a conversation he had after taking his father to a cardiologist.

“Well, look at your father, that’s where smoking will get you,” he said to me.

His father’s demise last month cemented in him the decision

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Issues:`Growing number of students smoking' 

A survey has found about 13 percent of first-time smokers in the country are junior high school students. Muhammad Syahril Mansyur, from the Surakarta Health Agency's respiratory illness division, said Thursday the finding showed an alarming growth rate of Indonesian smokers. The agency conducted the survey in five major cities across the country, including Surakarta in Central Java. . . .

The Indonesian anti-tobacco campaign has reportedly been deemed as ineffective as the government refuses to sign the international convention on tobacco control

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• HEALTH: Tobacco Companies Have a Field Day in Indonesia 

When it comes to smoking, Indonesia remains the last paradise for a puff in Southeast Asia. Those addicted to cigarettes can openly light up in public places without worrying about tough anti-tobacco penalties found in the rest of the region.

This reality has been shaped by the power of local and multinational tobacco companies on the archipelago of some 224 million people.

At the finals for the recent ‘Mild Live Wanted 2009' countrywide talent contest, in the former colonial city of Bandung, competing musicians belted out their songs from around 3 p.m till midnight.

For Indonesia's small, yet vocal, anti-tobacco activists, these concerts - billed to promote local talent - offered more than music to fill their ears. They were the latest in a string of publicity drives of the powerful multinational tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) in the country. . . .

The prospect of more deaths from this ”smoking epidemic” has still to move Jakarta, which is still to sign the world's first public health treaty - the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which has been in force since early 2005.

By contrast, this treaty has been signed by Indonesia's nine neighbours in the region, which include Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. . . .

But in other forms of entertainment, the publicity for tobacco companies are more direct, revealed Kania during a telephone interview from Jakarta. ”There was a film for teenagers last year where one of the actresses, who is still in junior high school, was smoking in scenes.”

Such an effort to glamorise smoking goes to extremes, at times. ”There are so many scenes of people smoking in Indonesian movies where the camera even zooms in to show the cigarette brand,” adds Kania. ”There is no regulation like in other countries.”

It is little wonder why a regional anti-tobacco lobby has described Southeast Asia's largest country as a ”cash cow” for the tobacco industry.

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• Indonesia Seeks to Clear the Air Over US Kretek Ban  

Burned by the recent US ban on kretek cigarettes, Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said government officials would soon meet with their US counterparts in an effort to alleviate smoldering tension over the issue.

Kretek cigarettes were banned by the US Food and Drug Administration on Sept. 21 on the grounds that their sweet flavor encouraged young people to take up smoking.

“We will arrange a meeting and will be having consultations to seek a fair solution to this matter,” Mari told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday.

The discussions, Mari said, are a preliminary response, but if no solution is found, then “at the end, it will be taken to the World Trade Organization.”

Mari said previously that the ban was highly detrimental to this country’s clove farmers and was in breach of WTO rules. . . .

Kretek International is apparently not going to take the issue lying down and is now seeking a declaratory ruling from the US District Court in Washington that its cigars are not cigarettes and can therefore be freely sold.

In its petition, it accused the FDA of “deliberately obfuscating” the definition of cigarette,” adding that “If a product is a cigar, it is not a cigarette, and vice versa.”

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Health Commission Re-elect Previous Chairman Amid Tobacco Scandal 

The previous chairman of Health Commission of the House of Representatives, Ribka Tjiptaning, of the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle, whose name has been mentioned in the report of the missing tobacco section in the new health regulation, had been re-elected to chair the commission for the next 2009 - 2014 term.

In the first meeting of the commission on Thursday, Ribka said "I have been officiated as the chairman."

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Smokers flout anti-smoking bylaw  

Many local residents were still seen puffing away on their favorite cigarettes in malls and other public areas as the Surabaya municipal administration started enforcing the bylaw against smoking in public places on Thursday.

Budi, a shopper at a mall, said Thursday he was unaware such an ordinance had been enacted last year in Surabaya.

Nor did he know that Thursday was the first day city residents would be prohibited from smoking in public places.

However, passive smokers and other residents hailed the enforcement of the no-smoking area and limited smoking-area bylaw.

They said they were "very happy" to have such a bylaw and hoped people would obey it to increase everyone's quality of life.

To promote and raise awareness about the bylaw's enforcement, a number of students gathered at several public places on Thursday in Surabaya, giving visitors candies in lieu of their cigarettes.

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• UPDATE: BAT Indonesia To Merge With Bentoel To Boost Mkt Shr  

Cigarette maker PT BAT Indonesia (BATI.JK) said Tuesday it plans to merge with sister company PT Bentoel Internasional Investama (RMBA.JK) in order to create a stronger entity.

"The combined market share of the two companies is expected to be around 8%," BAT Indonesia, a unit of British American Tobacco PLC (BTI), said in a joint statement with Bentoel.

It said each BAT Indonesia share will be exchanged for 7.68 Bentoel shares.

The merger proposal follows the 99.74% acquisition of Bentoel's shares in July by British American Tobacco.

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EDITORIAL: Lawmakers the butt of the joke in the tobacco war 

Over the past week, people have been amused, curious and outraged at the same time about the missing key "tobacco provision", which has become a subject of heated debate during the deliberations in which the interests of many stakeholders were involved.

It was a good thing that some former members of the special legislative committee in charge of deliberating the much-anticipated bill realized that one of the three paragraphs in chapter 113 of the finalized bill was conspicuously missing, while the bundle had already been submitted to the state secretariat for President Susilo Bambang Yudho-yono to sign into law.

The media detailed the sophistication of the omitted paragraph. T . . .

The lost provision singles out tobacco as an addictive and dangerous substance the use of which will be more tightly regulated under the law. This was a key issue that had survived bitter debates during deliberations of the bill because it would have wide-ranging ramifications on the multi-billion dollar tobacco business.

Advocates hoped the provision would account for a stronger legal basis for the government to better protect citizens from the danger of cigarettes and to reign in the tobacco industry. But critics, notably the tobacco industry, have always sought lenient laws that will not harm their business.

The omitted paragraph states, "The addictive substances ... include: Tobacco, derivative products containing solid, liquid and gaseous tobacco, which are addictive in nature and the use of which can cause health hazards to oneself and/or others".

After a storm of protests, the House assured the disappearance was all unintentional and that the "tobacco provision" has been put back in the draft bill that the President will sign into law. . . .

Although the House and the State Secretariat have assured that the missing provision has been recovered and reinstated, the laughing public will have to continue applying pressure for a criminal investigation into the scandal.

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• Witness and Evidence Prepared For Tobacco Lawsuit 

Lawmakers and government officials in the Health Department have been accused of conspiracy in the missing tobacco regulation in the recently approved Health Law.

An advocacy group consisting health expert, consumers rights activists, and the anti-corruption watchdog, Indonesia Corruption Watch held a press conference on Friday at the Indonesia Corruption Watch office, to announce that they have witness and evidence for their accusation in response to the "unintentional nature" of the crime by the legislative and the executive branch.

"It is already known who were involved and there are evidence for that," said Kartono Muhammad a health expert with the Coalition Against Corruption on Health Law.

A legal representative for the group, David Tobing, said he could not disclose the names yet to prevent allegation that the group is accusing certain people without legal procedure. He added that not all the members of the parliament were willing to be involved in the scandal, and said the witness had in his/her possession the written instruction to remove section 2 in article 113 which regulate tobacco in different form of substances.

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• Govt denies involvement in missing tobacco article 

The government has denied any involvement in the striking off of a contentious sub-article on tobacco in the recently endorsed health law, deemed an effort to protect the country’s cigarette industry.

State Secretary Hatta Radjasa said Tuesday the law, passed by the House of Representatives last month, was already missing the sub-article when his office received it.

He said he had contacted the Health Ministry and the Justice and Human Rights Ministry to settle the problem, and that the State Secretariat now had a complete version of the law, including the missing sub-article, to be signed by the President.

“The House of Representatives’ secretariat is lying if it said it received the law without the sub-article from the State Secretariat. That’s not how we send bills to the House,” Hatta said at a press conference.

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Tobacco in Indonesia to 2013 - new market and company analysis 

This databook provides key data and information on the tobacco market in Indonesia. This report is a comprehensive resource for market, category and segment level data including value, volume, distribution share and company & brand share. This report also provides expenditure and consumption data for the historic and forecast periods.

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