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Youth Smoking

Association Between Initial Use of e-Cigarettes and Subsequent Cigarette Smoking Among Adolescents and Young Adults

A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Association%20Between%20Initial%20Use%20of%20e-Cigarettes%20and%20Subsequent%20Cigarette%20Smoking%20Among%20Adolescents%20and%20Young%20Adults%3A%20A%20Systematic%20Review%20and%20Meta-analysis.&holding=ucsflib&otool=cdlotool&cmd=search

Abstract

IMPORTANCE:

The public health implications of e-cigarettes depend, in part, on whether e-cigarette use affects the risk of cigarette smoking.

OBJECTIVE:

To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies that assessed initial use of e-cigarettes and subsequent cigarette smoking.

DATA SOURCES:

PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, the 2016 Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco 22nd Annual Meeting abstracts, the 2016 Society of Behavioral Medicine 37th Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions abstracts, and the 2016 National Institutes of Health Tobacco Regulatory Science Program Conference were searched between February 7 and February 17, 2017. The search included indexed terms and text words to capture concepts associated with e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes in articles published from database inception to the date of the search.

STUDY SELECTION:

Longitudinal studies reporting odds ratios for cigarette smoking initiation associated with ever use of e-cigarettes or past 30-day cigarette smoking associated with past 30-day e-cigarette use. Searches yielded 6959 unique studies, of which 9 met inclusion criteria (comprising 17 389 adolescents and young adults).

DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS:

Study quality and risk of bias were assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and the Risk of Bias in Non-randomized Studies of Interventions tool, respectively. Data and estimates were pooled using random-effects meta-analysis.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES:

Among baseline never cigarette smokers, cigarette smoking initiation between baseline and follow-up. Among baseline non-past 30-day cigarette smokers who were past 30-day e-cigarette users, past 30-day cigarette smoking at follow-up.

RESULTS:

Among 17 389 adolescents and young adults, the ages ranged between 14 and 30 years at baseline, and 56.0% were female. The pooled probabilities of cigarette smoking initiation were 30.4% for baseline ever e-cigarette users and 7.9% for baseline never e-cigarette users. The pooled probabilities of past 30-day cigarette smoking at follow-up were 21.5% for baseline past 30-day e-cigarette users and 4.6% for baseline non-past 30-day e-cigarette users. Adjusting for known demographic, psychosocial, and behavioral risk factors for cigarette smoking, the pooled odds ratio for subsequent cigarette smoking initiation was 3.62 (95% CI, 2.42-5.41) for ever vs never e-cigarette users, and the pooled odds ratio for past 30-day cigarette smoking at follow-up was 4.28 (95% CI, 2.52-7.27) for past 30-day e-cigarette vs non-past 30-day e-cigarette users at baseline. A moderate level of heterogeneity was observed among studies (I2 = 60.1%).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE:

e-Cigarette use was associated with greater risk for subsequent cigarette smoking initiation and past 30-day cigarette smoking. Strong e-cigarette regulation could potentially curb use among youth and possibly limit the future population-level burden of cigarette smoking.

Why Smoking in Films Harms Children

We want to believe we’re raising our kids to think for themselves, and not to do dumb or unhealthy things just because the cool kids are doing them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/well/family/why-smoking-in-films-harms-children.html

But research shows that when it comes to smoking, children are heavily influenced by some of the folks they consider the coolest of the cool: actors in movies.

“There’s a dose-response relationship: The more smoking kids see onscreen, the more likely they are to smoke,” said Dr. Stanton Glantz, a professor and director of the University of California, San Francisco, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. He is one of the authors of a new study that found that popular movies are showing more tobacco use onscreen.

“The evidence shows it’s the largest single stimulus,” for smoking, he said; “it overpowers good parental role modeling, it’s more powerful than peer influence or even cigarette advertising.”

He said that epidemiological studies have shown that if you control for all the other risk factors of smoking (whether parents smoke, attitudes toward risk taking, socioeconomic status, and so on), younger adolescents who are more heavily exposed to smoking on film are two to three times as likely to start smoking, compared with the kids who are more lightly exposed.

Those whose parents smoke are more likely to smoke, he said, but exposure to smoking in movies can overcome the benefit of having nonsmoking parents. In one study, the children of nonsmoking parents with heavy exposure to movie smoking were as likely to smoke as the children of smoking parents with heavy movie exposure.

To Dr. Glantz, and the other people who study this topic, that makes smoking in movies an “environmental toxin,” a factor endangering children.

“There’s no excuse for continuing to have smoking in movies that are rated to be sold to kids, and so the policy objective we have is there should be no smoking in movies that are rated for kids,” said Dr. Glantz, who maintains a website called Smoke Free Movies. “The studios have it in their power to fix this with a phone call.” The rating system needs to start treating smoking like a proscribed obscenity, he said; if it’s in the movie, the movie gets an R rating.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s fact sheet on smoking in the movies estimates that taking smoking out of films rated for children would save 18 percent of the 5.6 million young people alive today who will otherwise die of tobacco-related diseases – a million lives. “There’s nothing you could do that would be so cheap and save so many lives,” Dr. Glantz said.

This has been studied in 17 different countries, he said, and though policies vary widely and cultures are very different, the results are remarkably similar. “You consistently see this two to three times risk in kids who are exposed to a lot of onscreen smoking, all over the world.”

Five years ago, the people who worry about the impact on the young of seeing smoking in the movies thought things were looking good. In movies rated for a young audience (that is, G or PG or PG-13), there had been a steady drop in the number of “onscreen tobacco incidents.” Not only that, but in 2012, convinced by a heavy array of scientific evidence, the Surgeon General issued a report saying explicitly that seeing people smoke in movies caused kids to start smoking: “longitudinal studies have found that adolescents whose favorite movie stars smoke on screen or who are exposed to a large number of movies portraying smokers are at a high risk of smoking initiation.”

But after 2010, despite the accumulating evidence, the rate of cinematic smoking started to rise in those youth-rated movies, according to the new study, published this month in the C.D.C.’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which looked at incidents of tobacco use in top-grossing movies from 2010 to 2016.

As far as movies rated G, PG, and PG-13, “When we compared 2010 to 2016, there was a slight decrease in the number of movies, but an increase in the number of incidents,” said Michael Tynan, a public health analyst in the office on smoking and health at the C.D.C., and the lead author of the new study. Dr. Glantz is also an author, and he and two of the four other authors have received grants from the Truth Initiative, an antismoking group.

The number of times that an actor used a tobacco product in a top-grossing movie “increased 72 percent among all movies and 43 percent among PG-13 movies,” Mr. Tynan said. In other words, he said, by 2016 there were “more tobacco incidents concentrated in fewer movies.”

One out of every four movies rated for youth today continues to feature tobacco use, Mr. Tynan said, “and we know this is harmful to youth and causes youth to start using tobacco.”

And the policies that the studios have in place, which seemed to be working as of 2012, are clearly not sufficient, Mr. Tynan said. “The frequency of tobacco use in PG-13 movies is a public health concern.” So what should be done? “One change is to rate movies with tobacco use with an R rating,” he suggested. Other steps that might help would be to have studios certify that there was no paid product placement, and to end the use of any actual tobacco brands on the screen. All of these strategies are supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which has issued a statement calling the new study “alarming.”

In a study done back in the ’90s, researchers pointed to some of the differences between who smokes on screen and who smokes in the real world. In the real world, smokers are likely to be “poor people, people with mental illness,” Dr. Glantz said. “If you look at the power players, the rich people, people who are in control, they’re not smoking.” But in movies, it tends to be more desirable or powerful characters, even if they’re the bad guys, and in that way, movie images may reinforce images in cigarette advertising.

And movie images are powerful. In one experiment, young people who were smokers were shown montages of clips from recent movies; the participants were randomized so that some saw clips with smoking in them and some did not. Then they were given a 10-minute break, and the people who saw the smoking images were significantly more likely to smoke during the break than the smokers who had not seen the images.

“Keeping smoking onscreen is like putting arsenic in the popcorn,” Dr. Glantz said. The new study “shows they’ve taken half of the arsenic out,” he said. “Now they need to take the rest out.”

WHO China launches smoke-free campaign targeting youth

The World Health Organization (WHO) started a “smoke-free generation” media campaign in Beijing Thursday targeting young Chinese.

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2017-06/03/content_40957899.htm

China is in the grip of a national tobacco epidemic, and children are most susceptible with cigarettes portrayed as fashionable and alluring in popular culture, said Bernhard Schwartlander, WHO Representative in China at the launch event.

According to WHO, over half of Chinese adult men smoke, two thirds of whom started as young adults. By 2014, 72.9 percent Chinese students had been exposed to secondhand smoke.

“There is nothing cool about smoking, but there is something empowering about choosing to live a healthy, smoke-free life,” said Schwartlander.

Since China ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005, the country has made a number of tobacco control efforts, including banning tobacco advertisements, increasing tobacco taxes and putting forward regional smoking bans.

As of 2016, 18 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, had implemented regional smoking bans.

China has set a target to reduce the smoking rate among people aged 15 and older to 20 percent by 2030 from the current 27.7 percent, according to the “Healthy China 2030″ blueprint issued by the central authorities last October.

WHO urges government to control tobacco use

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged the government to introduce policies to control the use of tobacco because it is a leading risk factor for some serious non-communicable diseases.

The Country Representative of WHO, Dr Owen Kaluwa, who made the call suggested, for instance, the imposition of high taxes on tobacco companies to deter them from going into production.

http://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/who-urges-government-to-control-tobacco-use.html

In the event of the companies paying such taxes, he said, the revenue generated should be used to finance health delivery.

He was speaking at a public forum to mark World No-Tobacco Day (WNTD) in Accra last Wednesday.

Avoid tobacco

Dr Kaluwa said globally, tobacco kills about 7.2 million people every year, over 80 per cent of whom are from low or middle-income countries.

“In Africa, about 146,000 adults aged 30 years and above die every year due to tobacco-related health diseases,” he added.

He said the use of tobacco was a leading preventable risk factor for non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and chronic lung disease.

“Up to half of all tobacco users will die prematurely from tobacco-related causes, and on average, tobacco users lose 15 years of their lives,” he said.

Mr Kaluwa added that the growing of tobacco had affected agricultural lands in some areas.

Public education

At her turn, a Deputy Minister of Health, Mrs Tina Mensah, said adequate public education was important in dealing with the problem of tobacco use.

She reiterated the fact that tobacco use was dangerous to human health and damaging to national economic development.

“Tobacco-related illnesses and premature mortality impose direct and indirect cost to individuals and government,” she said.

She noted that tobacco production companies tried to influence the young generation to become addicted to smoking, which was a national threat.

She applauded the Food and Drugs Board (FDB) for its intervention in combating the use of tobacco by preventing tobacco companies from advertising their products.

Mrs Mensah said the ministry, for its part, would continue to support the fight against the use of tobacco in the country.

Preventive measures

Outlining some measures that had been put in place to check tobacco usage, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the FDA, Mrs Delese A. Darko, mentioned the prohibition of smoking in public places, advertising prohibition and sponsorship as examples.

She added that packaging, labelling and health warnings on tobacco packages were other ways of preventing and discouraging tobacco consumers from patronising the product.

“These prohibitions have shown to be effective in reducing the demand for tobacco,” she said, adding that public sensitisation and education would, accordingly, be increased to meet the target groups.

“As we get funding, we will continue to do more to inform the public about the harmful effects of the use of tobacco,” Mrs Mensah said.

In connection with the celebration, Smoking Cessation Guidelines and a declaration on WNTD 2017 were launched.

Cheaper cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco slows smoking’s downward spiral

Yesterday morning, Australia’s tobacco industry woke to the latest chapter in the book documenting its inexorable decline.

https://theconversation.com/cheaper-cigarettes-roll-your-own-tobacco-slows-smokings-downward-spiral-78745

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released data from its 2016 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, which it has conducted every three years since 1985.

While it was always going to be hard to show even further decline in teenage smoking from what was an already very low level, it’s happened again.

The proportion of teenagers (aged 12-17) who have never smoked more than 100 cigarettes significantly increased between 2013 and 2016, from 95% to 98%. Smoking more than 100 cigarettes in a lifetime has long been used in Australia as a benchmark question to sort curious, experimental smokers from more committed and addicted smokers.

Younger people also continued to delay when they first smoked their first full cigarette. This increased in the 14 to 24-year-olds from 14.2 years in 1995 to 16.3 in 2016 (a statistically significant increase from 15.9 years in 2013).

Catch ‘em young

The tobacco industry knows it needs to attract and addict new consumers to replace those who stop smoking through quitting and death. As a 1981 report sent to the then vice-president of research and development at Philip Morris put it:

Younger adult smokers are the only source of replacement smokers … If younger adults turn away from smoking, the industry must decline, just as a population which does not give birth will eventually dwindle.

Australia’s plain packaging legislation, implemented in December 2012, was aimed at reducing teenage Australians taking up smoking. As the health minister who introduced it, Nicola Roxon emphasised in April 2010 when announcing the policy:

We’re targeting people who have not yet started, and that’s the key to this plain packaging announcement – to make sure we make it less attractive for people to experiment with tobacco in the first place.

As Australian young people have turned away from smoking, the tobacco industry is left scrambling for new ways to addict young customers to nicotine.

Total smoking levels remain level

The proportion of people of all ages who smoke was also not good news for the tobacco industry.

The percentage of people aged 14 and over who smoke daily is down from 12.8% in 2013 to 12.2% in 2016. While any decline is welcome, this was less than it should have been, and the first time in two decades that a statistically significant fall was not recorded.

There are several factors likely to be responsible for the previously brake-less downward slide in smoking.

Long-time campaigners Mike Daube and Todd Harper have set out nine strategies the Australian tobacco industry has used so it can keep earning from the deaths of two in three Australian smokers likely to die from using their products.

Two critical factors here are price discounting and the dramatic rise of roll-your-own tobacco.

How price discounting works

Plain packaging means brand differentiation is gone as all packs look the same, except for the written brand name. So, the ability of branding to convince gullible smokers that premium (expensive) brands are somehow “better” and worth spending more on than cheaper, budget brands goes out the window.

After plain packaging was introduced, there was an industry-wide decision to cut prices to compete with lower priced brands for market share. There were large tobacco tax rises in the run-up to plain packs being introduced (25% in 2010) and a further 12.5% each year from 2013 to 2016.

Again, the tobacco companies cut their margins by desperately trying to keep some brands below A$20 a pack, a price known to trigger quitting.

These practices may see renewed interest in floor pricing of tobacco products, when a price is set below which a product cannot be sold.

Rise in roll-your-own tobacco

Tobacco companies have also aggressively pushed cheaper roll-your-own tobacco by introducing loose tobacco with cigarette brand names. The tax in roll-your-own tobacco will rise from September 2017, which may see a further round of price discounting to try and stop people quitting.

The use of roll-your-own cigarettes has gone from 26% of smokers in 2007, to 33% in 2013 and to 36% in 2016. Lower price is one factor driving this, but so too are the quite erroneous beliefs that roll-your-own tobacco somehow contains fewer additives and is less harmful, an issue I will explore in my next column.

The increase in roll-your-own cigarettes since 2007 has been largest among smokers aged under 40 (increase of 82% for young adults and 70% for smokers in their 30s between 2007 and 2016). Between 2013 and 2016 roll-your-own use in smokers in their 30s jumped from 29% to 37%.

National campaign wheels fallen off

Sustained and adequately funded mass media campaigns are a vital component of strategies health authorities recommended to change health behaviours, like smoking.

And with smoking, one of the most obvious pieces of evidence comes from ex-smokers about why they stopped smoking. There are light-years between the answer that has always been given (concern about health) and everything else (cost, social unacceptability, pregnancy etc).

In this study of smokers in 20 US communities, 91.6% of ex-smokers nominated “concern for your own current or future health” as why they quit compared with 46.5% who nominated “pressure from family, friends or co-workers”.

Without large scale, on-going campaigns that reach large proportions of the population with unforgettable, motivating information about why smoking is so harmful, the core driver of quitting and not starting smoking may wane.

Regrettably, Australia’s world famous national tobacco campaign that started in 1997 and has been used by many other countries, has been mothballed since 2013 when the Coalition government took office.

Smokers still get sporadic small bursts of quit smoking ads on television in some states from state health departments. But they are not getting a fraction of the highly motivating exposures that were a big part of our earlier rapid declines. This absence is almost certainly a major factor explaining the slow down in people quitting smoking.

E-cigarettes

The latest stats show that while around 31% of smokers (ie 3.8% of the 14+ population) had ever tried e-cigarettes, 20% seemed to have done so out of curiosity (once or twice) with only 4.4% currently using them (the remaining 6.8% no longer use them). Just 1.5% of smokers were using e-cigarettes daily (0.8% of ex-smokers and 0.2% of never smokers).

There’s no evidence from these very small numbers that e-cigarette use is contributing to falling smoking in Australia.

Many are concerned that the tobacco industry (which has bought into vapourisers big time) has a business plan to have smokers vape and smoke, not vape instead of smoking. If that plays out, increases in vaping may in fact act to further slow people from quitting smoking. The next few years will provide important information on this important issue.

Smoking may cause bone degeneration, osteoporosis in youngsters

Smoking as a habit typically begins in high school or the college years, when bones are still developing. It also interferes with calcium and vitamin D absorption in the body.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/fitness/smoking-may-cause-bone-degeneration-osteoporosis-in-youngsters/story-loCO9GllLujrar6epnuDbI.html

Youngsters who smoke may be at risk of developing low bone density — a condition that may lead to an increased risk of developing osteoporosis, experts say.

“Smoking has a negative effect on the bones, causing loss of bone mass and, eventually, premature osteoporosis when young people take up smoking,” Raju Vaishya, senior orthopaedic surgeon, at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Smoking as a habit typically begins in high school or the college years, when bones are still developing. It also interferes with calcium and vitamin D absorption in the body.

Besides, in case of a bone injury, a person who smokes is more likely to have a longer period of recovery and greater risk of complication, doctors noted.

“Smoking during the years of bone-building puts you at risk of osteoporosis in later stage. Smoking after 30 will speed up loss of bone mass almost twice as faster,” Vaishya added.

Smoking kills over one million people in the India annually, according to The Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) India report. The economic burden of tobacco consumption is around Rs 104,500 crore per annum.

In a study, recently published in the journal Annals of the American Thoracic Society, smoking was found to be an independent risk factors for low bone density among both men and women.

Each additional pack-year of smoking raised the odds of having low bone density by 0.4%. The participants with normal bone density had an average of 36.6 pack-year of smoking, while those with low bone density had an average of 46.9 pack-years of smoking history.

Smokers Undeterred as Bills Keep Rising

Since the beginning of the past fiscal year (ended in March) the taxes collected on tobacco products are paid to the Health Ministry (50%), Education Ministry (25%) and Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs (25%) for anti-smoking campaigns

https://financialtribune.com/articles/people/65335/smokers-undeterred-as-bills-keep-rising

Iranians spend $1-1.5 million (40 to 50 billion rials) on tobacco products each day and the cost of treating tobacco-related disease is almost three times more than the amount spent on tobacco consumption.

During the past five years, the rate of tobacco consumption has only slightly decreased, studies conducted by the Health Ministry indicate. The rate is still high among adolescents and young people (the peak age for first trying of smoking has decreased from 13 to 10). The figure has also increased dramatically compared to the past decade, the Persian language weekly ‘Salamat’ reported.

“In 2006, Iranians smoked 50 billion cigarettes (worth $33.3 million). The figure reached 60-70 billion cigarettes in 2016,” said Dr Mohammadreza Madani, head of the Iranian Anti-Tobacco Association (IATA).

Another concern is the high prevalence of hookah (water pipe) for smoking flavored tobacco among young people. One hour of smoking hookah exposes a smoker 100-fold to the amount of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette. Even those people around a hookah smoker inhale smoke equal to 10 cigarettes.

Every year on May 31, the WHO marks World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), highlighting the health and additional risks associated with tobacco use, and advocating effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption.

The theme for World No Tobacco Day 2017 is ‘Tobacco – a threat to development.’

But irrespective of the programs to create awareness on the harmful effects of smoking, statistics show that 14-15% of Iranians from the 80 million population are regular cigarette smokers (more than 3% are women, and 20% men).

“Though most of the cigarette smokers are men, hookah smoking doesn’t vary by gender; 21.3% of women and 21.7% of men are hookah smokers,” Madani said.

Dodging Taxes

Iran is one of the nations that has signed the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), by which a country is committed to reduce the rate of tobacco consumption every year (by implementation of both price and tax measures as well as non-price measures to reduce demand for tobacco).

Pointing to Article 8 of the National Comprehensive Law on Tobacco Control, Madani said, “According to the law passed in 2006, every year taxes on cigarettes should be increased by 10%.”

“However, there have been always obstacles in its implementation. For example, in 2010 the figure decreased to 5% due to ‘manipulative tactics’ by the powerful tobacco lobby. Tobacco producers said that high taxes on cigarettes would lead to an increase in cigarette smuggling, and thus managed to reduce the tax.”

However, in January this year, lawmakers passed cigarette and tobacco tax slabs to be implemented under the sixth five-year economic development plan (2017-22).

Based on the new law, the tax slab on locally-produced tobacco and cigarettes is 10%; for local brands jointly produced by domestic and foreign manufacturers, it is 20%; for domestically produced cigarettes with foreign brand names the slab is 25%; and for imported cigarettes and tobacco, it is 40%.

Lawmakers also mandated the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade to announce the retail prices of cigarettes and all tobacco products to the relevant authorities for taxation purposes and for printing the tax rates on cigarette packs.

“Since the beginning of the past fiscal year (ended in March) the taxes collected on tobacco products are paid to the Health Ministry (50%), Education Ministry (25%) and Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs (25%). The Education Ministry is required to spend the money on increasing students’ awareness of harms associated with tobacco smoking,” Madani said.

Earlier, the tax money was given to the ministries of health and sports and youth affairs.

Facts About Tobacco

There are more than 7 million deaths from tobacco use every year, a figure that is predicted to cross 8 million by 2030 without effective and intensified action. Tobacco consumption is a threat to any person, regardless of gender, age, race, cultural or educational background. It brings suffering, disease, and death, impoverishing families and national economies.

Tobacco use costs national economies enormously through increased healthcare costs and decreased productivity. Some 80% of premature deaths from tobacco occur in low- or middle-income countries, which face increased challenges to achieving their development goals, the WHO website reports.

Tobacco growing requires large amounts of pesticides and fertilizers, which can be toxic and pollute water supplies. Each year, tobacco growing uses 4.3 million hectares of land, resulting in global deforestation between 2% and 4%. Tobacco manufacturing also produces over 2 million tons of solid waste.

By increasing cigarette taxes worldwide by $1, an extra $190 billion could be raised for development. High tobacco taxes contribute to revenue generation for governments, reduce demand for tobacco, and offer an important revenue stream to finance development activities.

Current Tobacco Smoking and Desire to Quit Smoking Among Students Aged 13–15 Years

Download (PDF, 86KB)

Indonesian teachers group declares anti-tobacco stance

Ahead of World No Tobacco Day on May 31, Indonesia’s largest teachers group signed on Wednesday a declaration to underline the role of educators in supporting measures for tobacco control.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/05/24/indonesian-teachers-group-declares-anti-tobacco-stance.html

Created by the Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI), the declaration consists of six points, which include teachers’ commitment to “protect students from the dangers of smoking” and “oppose CSR [Corporate Social Responsibility] campaigns from the tobacco industry.”

Teachers also called on the government to create a comprehensive tobacco control regulations to curb cigarette consumption.

“Teachers have to be role models for their pupils by not smoking […] Exemplary acts by teachers are very strategic in the [anti-tobacco] campaign,” PGRI chairwoman Unifah Rosyidi said at the declaration’s signing event in Kuningan, South Jakarta, on Wednesday.

The event was organized by the National Commission on Tobacco Control (Komnas PT), a coalition of organizations that has been staunchly campaigning for tobacco related issues in Indonesia, one of the world’s biggest tobacco consumers.

Komnas PT chairman Prijo Sidipratomo welcomed the declaration, saying that it was in line with one of PGRI’s missions to support the country’s development.

“Some 25 percent of students’ daily time is spent at school, which highlights the role of teachers in shaping their way of life,” Prijo said. (rin)

Indonesia’s Child Tobacco Workers in Peril

In the next week, Indonesian President Joko (“Jokowi”) Widodo will decide whether to encourage parliament to move forward with a draft tobacco bill aimed at increasing domestic tobacco production. The bill would gut many important existing health regulations, like the requirement that companies include a health warning with a picture on the label of tobacco products.

Those are troubling proposals given that millions of children in Indonesia start smoking each year, and that 40 million more are “passive smokers” from secondhand smoke. The Indonesian Ministry of Health, 17 prominent health organizations, and many others have denounced the measure as an attempt to undermine Indonesia’s already weak tobacco control laws. Jokowi should reject the bill.

But the draft bill is not the only tobacco policy issue awaiting action by the Jokowi administration. Each year in Indonesia, thousands of children, some just 8 years old, work in hazardous conditions producing tobacco that ends up in products marketed and sold by huge Indonesian and multinational tobacco companies.

My colleagues and I published a Human Rights Watch report documenting hazardous child labor on Indonesian tobacco farms last May. Since then, another tobacco season has come and gone, but the child workers behind Indonesia’s tobacco industry remain unprotected.

We interviewed 132 children who worked on tobacco farms in four of Indonesia’s biggest tobacco-producing provinces. We found that child workers are exposed to nicotine and pesticides—toxins that can be especially harmful to children who are still growing and developing. Half the children we interviewed had experienced nausea, vomiting, headaches, or dizziness while they worked. Those symptoms are consistent with acute nicotine poisoning, which happens when workers handle tobacco plants and absorb nicotine through their skin. Many children said they also mixed and sprayed toxic chemicals on the plants with no protective equipment, and some became violently ill afterward.

The families we interviewed did not intentionally put their children in harm’s way. They were committed to helping their children get an education so they could have a better future.

Indeed, most of the children we interviewed attended school and worked in tobacco farming only outside of school hours.

But direct contact with tobacco in any form is hazardous work for children because of the nicotine in the leaves. Most of the families we spoke with had never received comprehensive information about the hazards for children of work on tobacco farms, so they did not know the risks to their children.

We urged the Jokowi government to take action to protect children from danger in tobacco fields. We called on the Health Ministry to work with other ministries to develop a public education campaign to raise awareness of the dangers to children of work on tobacco farms. In recent meetings with Human Rights Watch, government officials have said they need additional support and resources to get the campaign underway this year.

Indonesia already prohibits children under 18 from work “with harmful chemical substances.” The Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration should explicitly prohibit children from working in direct contact with tobacco in any form and increase labor enforcement efforts to make sure government inspectors check for workers’ safety, especially on small tobacco farms where children might be in danger.

In our meetings with government officials, we have heard many times that the tobacco industry is powerful in Indonesia, and that it is difficult to achieve policy changes the industry opposes. Surely eliminating child labor in tobacco farming is an issue tobacco companies also want to address.

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights make clear that companies have responsibilities for addressing human rights abuses in their supply chains. We shared our findings with the largest tobacco companies operating in Indonesia—Djarum, Gudang Garam, Philip Morris International (which owns Sampoerna), British American Tobacco (which owns Bentoel), and others. The large multinational tobacco companies have policies to prevent children from doing the most dangerous tasks on tobacco farms, but their policies are not strong enough, and they should do more to monitor for child labor when they buy Indonesian tobacco on the open market through traders.

The largest Indonesian companies—Djarum and Gudang Garam—do not appear to be taking any steps to prevent or address child labor in their supply chains. They have never responded to our many requests for information and meetings, and they do not make any information publicly available about their child labor policies.

These companies should not be profiting off the backs of Indonesian child workers.

Two months from now, the next tobacco-growing season will be underway, and children will be heading to the fields again. The controversy around the draft tobacco bill likely will not be resolved by then. But with decisive action, the Jokowi administration and tobacco companies could take steps to protect children from dangerous work in tobacco fields. Their futures depend on it.