Elly Burhaini Faizal, Jayapura – Consumer protection activists have pushed the government to immediately require cigarette manufacturers to put pictorial warnings on their packaging portraying the danger of smoking.
Based on the recently-issued tobacco regulation, cigarette manufacturers have been given 18 months to comply with the obligation to use 40 percent of cigarette packaging for text and pictorial warnings.
Tulus Abadi of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) said the timeframe for the full implementation of the regulation was too long. "I think we should not give them such a long time to put pictorial warnings on the tobacco packages. In fact, Indonesian tobacco manufactures already put pictorial health warnings on all packaging of tobacco products exported to other countries," he said.
"If they can obey regulations in other countries, why are they so reluctant to include pictorial warnings on packaging sold in the local market?" asked Tulus.
Meanwhile, the government have considered a set of five pictorial warnings describing the harmful effects of smoking for cigarette products. Three of the five pictures show a diseased lung, mouth and throat or larynx while the two other pictures visualize people exposed to secondhand smoke.
The warnings should amount to 40 percent of the principal display areas both on the front and back of the packaging.
Widyastuti Soerojo, the Southeast Asia Initiative on Tobacco Tax (SITT)'s Indonesia pack-project coordinator, said on Friday that the set of five pictorial warnings were selected based on study conducted by her institution in 2007.
"We took the pictures chosen by our respondents during the survey. They picked the pictures based on their own various reasons. This survey involved smokers and non-smokers who lived in both urban and rural areas as respondents," she told a press conference held by the National Commission on Tobacco Control at the Yayasan Jantung Indonesia office.
Health warnings to be displayed on the cigarette packages are required to be full-color, high resolution pictures. "The five pictures will be in the form of mock up and CD so no one can change them," said Widyastuti, adding that the Health Ministry's health promotion center was now in charge in preparing the pictorial warnings.
The inclusion of pictorial health warnings on cigarette packaging is one of two main issues, the other being the designation of smoke-free zones to protect people from secondhand smoke, that PP No.109/2012 on tobacco control now regulates.
PP 109 which contains 8 chapters and 65 articles is the implementing regulation of Law No.36/2009 on health. Under the regulation, tobacco packaging should also carry text that discloses the tar and nicotine levels and warn that cigarettes contain more than 4,000 dangerous chemical substances and more than 43 carcinogenic chemicals.
The warning notices should also include the prohibition of cigarette sales to children under the age of 18 years and pregnant women.
Once PP 109 comes into effect, Indonesia will be the fifth ASEAN member country to require pictorial warnings on tobacco packaging after Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Brunei.
"Despite loopholes, through the issuance of PP 109, the government has tried its best to respect and fulfill the right of poor and uneducated marginal members of the community to have clear information about the dangerous effects of smoking cigarettes," said Widyastuti.