Jakarta – The National Commission on Tobacco Control has reported that there has been a dramatic increase over the past few years in the number of young smokers in the country.
Member of the commission Widyastuti Soerojo said that the number of smokers at the age of 14 had increased from 3.9 million in 2010 to more than 7 million in 2013.
"We're concerned about this trend," Widyastuti said as quoted by tribunnews.com after a meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla on Wednesday.
The commission further called on the government to act quickly or risk paying the health costs for the country's smokers suffering from cancer, stroke and heart disease.
The 2013 Basic Health Research (Riskesdas) data revealed that more than 60 percent of smokers started smoking when under the age of 20. Meanwhile, data from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey revealed a rapid increase in young smokers aged between 13 and 15, from 12.6 percent in 2006 to 20.3 percent in 2009.