Protect children in Indonesia from tobacco marketing

The Gudang Garam cigarette company is the major sponsor of the Java Rockin’ Land festival taking place at Jakarta’s Ancol Beach from 8-10 October.

Children are welcome at the concert and students are being offered half price admission. It is well known that the tobacco industry in Indonesia flouts government regulations by distributing free cigarettes to concert goers contributing to Indonesia’s growing problem of youth smoking rates with 3 out of 4 smokers becoming addicted as adolescents and 1 in 3 smoking their first cigarette before the age of 10.

Almost all smokers in Indonesia start as children and tobacco use kills more than 200,000 people in Indonesia each year. At the current rate of smoking 1,644 Indonesians will die from tobacco-related illness during the three days of the Java Rockin’Land festival.

Indonesia is the fifth largest tobacco market in the world and has over 73 million smokers. Around 66% of men smoke, a rate not seen in United Kingdom since 1948. Indonesia has virtually no tobacco control policies or significant education programmes. Major tobacco companies in Indonesia include Gudang Garam, Sampoerna (Philip Morris International), Djarum, and Bentoel (British American Tobacco). These four companies dominate the Indonesian tobacco market with more than 70% of the total market share. In 2008, over 165 billion cigarettes were sold in Indonesia.

Tanya Buchanan, Chief Executive of ASH Wales said:

“We urge the rock bands to demand the withdrawal of tobacco sponsorship and any associated branding from the festival or alternatively to pull out of the festival. These actions would send a powerful message that they are concerned about the health of Indonesia’s children. Participating in a festival designed to promote tobacco products to children is unconscionable. If the bands go ahead with a tobacco sponsored concert, they are by choice being spokespeople for the tobacco industry and helping them to market to children.”

Professor Anna Gilmore of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, an expert in tobacco control and the tobacco industry:

“Because their products kill so many Indonesians every year, tobacco companies relentlessly seek to addict replacement smokers, and children serve this purpose. It is chilling to note that an estimated 78% of current Indonesian smokers started before the age of 19. Most people will have seen or heard about the video of the “smoking baby”—the disturbing images of an addicted Indonesian toddler puffing deeply on cigarettes that brought the world’s attention to the intensity of the tobacco problem in Indonesia. I would urge them to refuse to be used by the industry to promote its deadly products to young people and demand that tobacco sponsorship of their performance be stopped.”