In Indonesia, big tobacco clings to a smokescreen
Companies in the US may have been forced to come clean about the dangers of cigarettes, but in Southeast Asia lobby groups are paid to stifle attempts to enlighten the public
As antismoking groups in the US celebrate a victory in their decades-long fight against Big Tobacco, their Southeast Asian counterparts are still struggling to loosen the industry’s grip on policymaking in a region where more than a million people are killed by tobacco-related diseases every year.
“The [order] is significant because it is a rare instance of the companies being made to tell the truth about their decades-long conspiracy to deceive the public about the health effects of smoking and their marketing to children,” said Mark Hurley, director of international communications at Washington-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, one of the six public health interveners in the case.
The statements, however, will not be published in Southeast Asia, home to 600 million people and a major tobacco market. Smoking is often seen as a part of cultural identity in this region even though half a million people are diagnosed with preventable tobacco-related diseases every year, according to Bangkok-based Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA).
“Although Big Tobacco has been forced to issue these long-overdue corrective statements in the US, it is business as usual for the rest of the world as tobacco companies continue their misleading advertisements,” said Bungon Ritthiphakdee, SEATCA executive director.
The tobacco industry for years has deployed lobby groups to stifle efforts to implement control measures in the region. This is especially so in Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar, according to SEATCA’s Tobacco Industry Interference Index released last month. The index assesses how countries are adhering to guidelines set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to prevent the tobacco industry from interfering with control policies.
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Indonesia is the only WHO member in Southeast Asia that has not ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a set of universal standards to limit the sale, distribution and advertising of tobacco.