Marlboro Boys: Indonesia's Youngest Smokers Light Up
Marlboro Boys: Indonesia's Youngest Smokers Light Up
More than 70 percent of Indonesian men smoke. So do more than 40 percent of 13- to 15-year old boys . And then there are the legions of even younger smokers. Despite recent bans on smoking in public places and prohibitions on cigarette ads, public-health activists describe Indonesia as a "playground" for big tobacco companies like Philip Morris, which makes the country's No. 2 cigarette as well as the ubiquitous brand evoked by Michelle Siu 's photos of the kids she calls "Marlboro boys."
Illham Muhamad, who has smoked since he was five, slowly inhales his first cigarette of the day. I f his grandmother refuses to give him money for cigarettes he goes through withdrawal, crying and throwing fits.
Dihan Muhamad, who used to smoke up to two packs a day before cutting down, smokes while his mother breastfeeds his younger sibling.
Kids buy single cigarettes at a kiosk after school in Jakarta.
Dihan Muhamad enjoys his first cigarette at 7 a.m. before he attends first grade.
Dihan Muhamad smokes at home.
Ilham Hadi, a third grader, smokes in his bedroom.
Andika Prasetyo, who smokes about a pack a day.
Muhammad Taufik Hidayat, 14, has smoked since he was 11.
Ardian Azka Mubarok buys a single cigarette in the town of Garut.
Then he smokes at home. He's five years old.
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Indonesia is a very big country (238 million). Someone is making a lot of money off these kids. (Marlboro and Phillip Morris)
In a word...tragic. The societal impact is still a couple decades away, but impact it will. Health issues attributed to cigarette smoking over time are chiseled in stone (certainly in the US).
Purposeful lack of education regarding the effects of smoking borderline criminal, imo. Unfortunately, while Philip Morris and others market cigarettes around the globe, profits sate shareholders. As the smoking cycle continues, enter big pharma whose profits also sate shareholders.
Moral outrage is most often silenced by money.
Fun facts about Indonesia:
Indonesia is 87% Muslim.
Indonesian law imposes a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment for expressions or actions in public that have “the character of being at enmity with, abusing or staining a religion, adhered to in Indonesia” or are committed “with the intention to prevent a person to adhere [sic] to any religion based on the belief of the almighty God." (ie blasphemy)
However, from the Koran:
“...he [the Prophet] commands them what is just, and forbids them what is evil; he allows them as lawful what is good, and prohibits them from what is bad..."(Quran 7:157).
In more recent times, as the dangers of tobacco use have come to be proven beyond any doubt, scholars have become more unanimous in pronouncing tobacco use clearly haram (forbidden) to believers.
Islamic ruled countries are so backwards as to look the other way when it comes to killing yourself from tobacco, but imprisoning you if you badmouth the child molester Mohammed.
I guess I'm going to have to put up red box rules banning the gratuitous introduction of religion or atheism into my threads.