“Kretek is very close to our community, from Sabang to Merauke. It enters cultural niches,” Khoirul Atfifudin, spokesman of Kretek Community, which advocates for pro-tobacco policies, said. Kretek is an Indonesian signature cigarette, which blends tobacco with cloves, resulting in a sweet-tasting stick and thick haze when burned.

“We reject the tobacco-related articles in the latest health regulation, one of which contains a prohibition on selling retail cigarettes. We side with small vendors, because this ban will [hurt] them. We asked small shops their [opinions] on the ban on individual cigarette sales, and they disapproved of it.”

A pack of cigarettes now must contain at least 20 cigarettes, ultimately ending the sales of cheaper packs with 12 or 16 cigarettes.

The minimum purchase age has also been raised to 21 from 18. The new regulation does not include punishment or sanctions on vendors or producers that break the rules.

“Retail sales [could promote] products that are easily accessible to novice smokers, children and teenagers, whose consumption levels we really want to reduce,” Indah Febrianti, head of law division at the Ministry of Health, said in a statement on August 2.

Love of cigarettes

Indonesia has one of the world’s highest smoking rates: out of a population of 270 million, 70 million were active smokers, according to the Indonesian Health Survey last year. Underage smoking also remains a challenge: 7.4 per cent of smokers last year were 10-18 year olds, with 15-19 being the highest smoking initiation age group at 56.5 per cent.

Unlike in the West, there is also no stigma surrounding smoking, which Khoirul of Kretek Community says is “an art” in and of itself.

“By smoking, I always have a friend. When I’m sleepy, when I have work to do, or when I was a student, when I did assignments, cigarettes are my friend,” the 23 year-old said.

Khoirul, who started smoking when he was 20, said that his group supports the government’s effort to reduce underage smoking, but not through measures that hurt small businesses and tobacco workers.

“Maybe the authority should require consumers to show ID cards to purchase cigarettes, and strengthen the monitoring [of the policy implementation], we will support that,” he said.

Stricter measures

The latest tobacco control regulations, however, were welcomed by anti-tobacco activists, though they demand more restrictions from Jakarta.

Yolonda C. Richardson, president and chief executive of the Washington-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement that the organisation applauds Widodo for signing the regulations, and urges the government to implement them despite “interference from tobacco companies that will surely continue.”

“It is also crucial for the Indonesian government to further protect Indonesians by dramatically raising tobacco prices, simplifying the complicated tobacco tax system and mandating indoor public places be 100 per cent smoke-free,” the statement said.

In Indonesia, a single cigarette only costs 2,000 rupiah (12 cents) in family-run kiosks, while a pack usually costs around 30,000 rupiah (US$1.86).

“One of the determining factors that causes the cigarette emergency to be so worrying is the ‘magic’ of advertising. In [our] research, 71 per cent of student smokers said that cigarette advertising was creative or inspirational, stimulating them to smoke. In Asean, only Indonesia still allows cigarette advertising. It is difficult to eliminate the smoking epidemic without an advertising ban policy,” Fanani said.

He also urged the authority to require producers to place pictorial health warnings that cover 80 per cent of the cigarette packs, up from just 50 per cent currently mandated.

Ahmad Fuady, assistant professor at the faculty of medicine at University of Indonesia, said the tobacco controls are a result of “political bargaining” between the government and Big Tobacco.

“In this government regulation, even though there has been progress, I don’t see a requirement to increase cigarette excise, there is no sanction mechanism for those who sell individual cigarettes. This will not affect much of the circulation of cigarette sales among teenagers,” he said.

In Indonesia, the tobacco industry employs a massive workforce and contributes billions to government coffers. As of May, income from tobacco excise reached 77.94 trillion rupiah (US$4.8 billion) of the 81.2 trillion rupiah collected in total customs and excise revenues. The industry also employed 5.98 million workers, as of last year, according to the industry ministry.