Tobacco firms target China, Indonesia youth
Updated
It's a grim fact that nearly half the world's smokers live in just three countries: China, India and Indonesia, and many are taking up the habit at a very young age.
In China, one in ten boys aged 14 are smokers. And in Indonesia, a third of students report taking their first puff before the age of ten.
The World Health Organisation says the tobacco industry has long targeted young people as so-called "replacement smokers" to take the place of those who quit or die. And as smoking rates decline in the West, it's been setting its sights on the developing world.
Presenter: Joanna McCarthy
Speaker: Dina Kania, youth advocate for Indonesia's National Commission for Child Protection in Jakarta; Susan Lawrence, head of China programs at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington DC
- Listen:
- Windows Media
SUSAN LAWRENCE: There are lots of reasons. I mean, China has got enormously high smoking rates so kids smoke because everybody around them smokes and because the message that society sends them is that smoking is normal, that if you're in a public place, you're smoking. And there's this sense that this is what - particularly men - this is what men do. Grown-up men smoke and boys who want to look grown-up, smoke. Women smoking rates in China are still very low, but it's really a male phenomenon for the most part.
JOANNA McCARTHY: How likely is that it when a young boy or girl does take up smoking. they will be a smoker for life?
SUSAN LAWRENCE: Smoking - the nicotine is highly addictive. I mean, it's as addictive, it's on a par, with heroin. It's very, very addictive. So, if they start young, they're likely to continue.
JOANNA McCARTHY: Dina Kania in Jakarta, if I could turn to you. I know in Indonesia nearly a quarter of 13-year-old to 15-year-old Indonesian boys are also smokers. It does seem higher among boys as well. And yet Indonesia's Government does very little to regulate or control the tobacco industry. Why is that?
DINA KANIA: Well, our governments have long been very dependent on the tax revenue from the tobacco industry and they have a very solid relationship with the tobacco industry. So they are so hesitant to regulate the tobacco industry in regards of the tobacco control because the myth is very strong. The myth of the profits made by the tobacco industry, of their contribution to our country, is very strong in our country. So that's why the government won't buy our arguments, our tobacco control advocate arguments, because they believe the tobacco industry more than us.
JOANNA McCARTHY: Indeed, I believe a tenth of all government revenue in Indonesia comes from taxes on tobacco. So what would you like to see the government doing to stamp out smoking among children in particular?
DINA KANIA: I think, for now, our organisation is trying to ban all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. I think that's the first step to prevent the young kids from taking up smoking. So that's what we would like the government to do, for a short period of time.
JOANNA McCARTHY: Well, let's talk about promotions and sponsorship. Susan, I understand China, while it has some restrictions on advertising, has in fact no restrictions on promotions and sponsorship. In what ways are these targeting young people?
SUSAN LAWRENCE: All sorts of ways. I mean, the China National Tobacco Corporation, which dominates the market in China - I mean, in China, 90 per cent of the market is domestic cigarettes - so the China National Tobacco Corporation company sponsors rural schools, for example. There are a lot of schools in rural areas which carry tobacco names, tobacco brand names. They do promotional events in shopping malls, bringing on very popular, sort of, break dancing routines or popular singers to entice crowds. And a lot of people in those crowds are kids. So, those are the sorts of activities we're seeing.
JOANNA McCARTHY: Dina Kania, do you see the same kind of activities going on in Indonesia?
DINA KANIA: Yes, the industry targets young people aggressively. We have been doing tobacco industry surveilance since 2008 and it is very obvious and evident that they are targeting young people. They sponsor music events and we have monitored about 1,350 events sponsored by tobacco industry and most of those events were attended by children and teenagers.
JOANNA McCARTHY: Susan Lawrence in Washington, we know that higher taxes in tobacco do reduce the rates of smoking. How is tobacco taxed in China?
SUSAN LAWRENCE: Tobacco taxation is still very low in China compared to the international norm. The international norm is the tobacco tax takes up about 65 per cent of the retail price. In China, that number's a lot lower, it's about 40 per cent of retail price. And China has an additional problem that, in addition to having low tobacco taxes, the domestic industry also subsidises the production of low-end cigarettes, of the very cheap cigarettes. And they cast this as their contribution to the country, that they want to be able to make cigarettes available to rural markets, where people have lower incomes. But in fact, it's a very dangerous and harmful practice and it means that there are a lot of very, very cheap cigarettes around. Kids are very price sensitive, they tend not to have a whole lot of spending money, so if you make cigarettes very expensive, it's a really effective way to keep smoking rates among kids low and prevent those kids from being hooked for life.
JOANNA McCARTHY: At the same time though, given that we do know the poor spend more of their income on cigarettes and are more likely to be smokers, don't higher taxes disproportionately hurt the poor and poor children?
SUSAN LAWRENCE Higher taxes don't hurt the poor. I think that they actually help the poor in all sorts of ways. The poor are the most price sensitive group out there, so if you raise tobacco taxes, you're going to see an awful lot of those people either quitting smoking or sharply reducing their consumption of cigarettes. And that helps because not only does it help with household incomes - currently a lot of poor families are seeing 12 per cent - 15 per cent of a household income going on tobacco - but it also helps reduce illness, tobacco-related illness. And tobacco-related illness in China can send people rapidly into serious, serious poverty because there's no social safety net, really, to cover medical, big medical prices.
JOANNA McCARTHY: And Dina Kania in Jakarta, for all of this talk about government action, isn't it ultimately the responsibility of parents to be keeping their children away from cigarettes?
DINA KANIA: Well, as parents, of course, they do have the responsibility to prevent the children from smoking. But we should bear in mind that smoking can no longer be perceived as a private issue. I mean, it has become an epidemic and there is a matter of public health and there's this giant tobacco industry that is selling and promotes its product aggressively to young people. Efforts done by parents, it's so insufficient. We need a law. We need a regulation to regulate this tobacco industry and this can only be done by the government.
JOANNA McCARTHY: And Susan, what would you say to that? What role does parental responsibility play?
SUSAN LAWRENCE: I just think it's awfully hard for parents, when the signals that society is sending is that smoking is normal and that in fact, in China, that to be a real man, you have to smoke. And that's the kind of - I think government really needs to play a role in taking on those messages. We need really strong public education campaigns, high taxes, bans on smoking in public places, workplaces, public transportation and bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. And of course, all these things are actually in the first global public health treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which was signed in 2003 and China ratified it in 2005. One hundred and sixty four countries in the world have ratified the FCT now and they've all made a commitment to use those measures to do something about the tobacco epidemic.
