Ismira Lutfia & Putri Prameshwari – About Rp 185 trillion ($19.6 billion) is spent each year treating smoking-related diseases, a consumer advocacy group said on Sunday as it renewed calls to increase the tax on cigarettes.

Speaking during a youth against smoking event organized by the National Commission on Tobacco Control, Tulus Abadi, chairman of the Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation (YLKI), urged the government to increase the excise tax on cigarettes to make people think twice about taking up the habit.

"The tax in Indonesia is only 37 percent of the total price for a pack of cigarettes," he said, adding that some countries had taxes double that amount.

"It's devastating how low the tax on cigarettes is in Indonesia," Tulus said. "It is so low that it cannot even cover the medical cost of Indonesians who get smoking-related diseases."

The Ministry of Health estimates that about 400,000 Indonesians die each year from smoking-related illnesses. In 2005, a ministry study found that the state was paying an estimated Rp 105.4 trillion to treat smokers, or more than three times the annual revenue from cigarette taxes.

The government increased the excise tax on cigarettes by an average of 7 percent beginning on Feb. 1, 2009, but antismoking campaigners said that was still not high enough to be effective.

Tulus also said there was still too much cigarette advertising, with many young people picking up the habit because they were influenced by the media. "Around 60 percent of children in Indonesia are exposed to cigarettes," he said.

Cigarette producers, Tulus said, should also be forced to put graphic pictures depicting the dangers of smoking on every packet of cigarettes, as is required in many countries. He said this would allow people to see the kind of damage smoking does to the body.

Kartono Mohammad, a doctor and former chairman of the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI), likened the influence wielded by the cigarette industry over government policy to a new form of colonialism.

"Those who are invaded are not just the smokers themselves, but also the tobacco farmers since they have no bargaining power when selling their tobacco to producers," he said.

Sunday's youth against tobacco event was coincidentally held at the National Awakening Museum, once the Stovia colonial medical school, from which a student group initiated a national movement against the Dutch colonialist at the turn of the 20th century.

"The same pattern is happening today," Kartono said, explaining that a small group of young people were now driving the movement against the tobacco industry.

"Hopefully they will be inspired by the youth movement of the old days – they were only a minority then too," he said. "They also have to awaken a public that does not realize that they have been invaded."