Late last month, as preparations for the observance of World No Tobacco Day heightened, the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper ran a feature—complete with photographs—on a two-year-old Indonesian boy, who smokes 40 cigarettes a day. Anyone who is familiar with this tabloid’s content would expect to see this type of story published therein. The Mail, and its close competitor the Sun, thrive on the stories that produce shock and awe, and maybe both at the same time. They are famous for going to tremendous lengths to obtain salacious stories; exposing the secret lives of public figures; paying for exclusive publishing rights; and have even been accused of presenting fiction as fact.
While this particular story may not have fallen into any of those categories, for anyone living outside Indonesia, where, according to statistics published in the same story, 25 per cent of Indonesian children aged three to 15 have tried cigarettes and 3.2 per cent are active smokers, it would be extremely shocking.
What adds to the incredible nature of the story is that there are photographs of the chubby toddler, with a lit cigarette between the index and middle fingers of his right hand, lolling on a plastic toy truck, blowing puffs of smoke in the air. Then there are the quotes from his parents: his father who gave him his first smoke, seeing nothing wrong with it; his mother lamenting his expensive addiction which is also damaging his health. One wants to hope this story is untrue, though this would mean the child was exploited for the sake of sensationalism. However, there is evidence in his no-longer-childlike face of the ravages of heavy smoking.
While some young people, including teenagers and pre-teens smoke or have tried cigarettes, there are very few places in the world where two and three year olds light up; the problem is likely unique to Indonesia, said to be the world’s third-largest tobacco consumer. In fact, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), globally, the greatest risk to children from tobacco is from second-hand smoke.
On Monday, World No Tobacco Day was observed under the theme ‘Gender and Tobacco with an Emphasis on Marketing to Women,’ who still make up just 20% of the world’s smokers, though current trends show this is increasing. For some years now, reprehensively so, the huge tobacco conglomerates have been on an all-out blitz aimed at making smoking appear to be glamorous, hip and liberating. They have been targeting women, particularly the very young, and claiming that people smoke by choice.
The truth is that as awareness grew in the developed world and bans on sponsorship and advertising of cigarette brands, among other measures, were implemented in keeping with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the tobacco companies have kept pace; shifting focus, always with the bottom line in mind. It could not be more obvious—cheap cigarettes aimed at poor people in developing countries; slim, light, low tar and menthol cigarettes pitched at women, young people and girls; expensive, luxury-type, glitzy packaged smokes for people with more money than sense.
The reality is that tobacco use harms and kills people just as effectively as, let’s say, a small daily dose of cyanide. According to the WHO, smoking kills more than five million people every year, about 1.5 million of whom are women; and some 430,000 adults die every year of illnesses related to second-hand smoke. Smoking cigarettes, whether they are slim, light, low-tar, mentholated or just regular tobacco rolled in paper without all the trimmings, contributes to respiratory diseases, cancers, strokes and heart attacks. In addition, smoking promotes foul breath, stains the smoker’s teeth and fingers and tobacco odour permeates the hair, skin, clothing – even the room in which cigarettes are smoked. In short, it’s disgusting and this is the kind of strong message which WHO hopes will increasingly be conveyed to counter the deceit being peddled by the other side.
