Anti Smoking Campaign, Jakarta

Feb 11th, 2010, in Opinion, by

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo and the Health Dept to deny smokers and their families health care.


Witch-Hunt Gathers Strength

The latest edict from our Jakarta leaders and betters is just another side-swipe at the poor. City governor Fauzi Bowo wants smokers to be denied health benefits. Grizzled Fuzzy:

…low-income families spend 22% of their income on cigarettes. These people enjoy free health care,while still smoking, which worsens their health.

Dien EmawatiHis female flunky, the head of the Jakarta Health Agency Dien Emawati, stressed that not only would the wicked smokers be persecuted but

all the family members living in the same house…becuase they share the responsibility of maintaining a healthy environment.

However, these bureaucrats have not yet decided on a method to identify smokers.

Well, that’s something. What’s it going to be, Fuzzy? Check their tongues for furry skin texture? Their breath for that ash-tray fragrance? Make them cough a few times. Or have a kind of kretek/sharia police prowling round the kampungs, grabbing guys off their door-steps and torturing them till they own up to how many packs a day?

Fauzi BowoThe thing is, if you are poor and don’t have much money to go out and have a good time, a category to which most kampung dwellers belong, then you’re likely to smoke to pass the time agreeably. A cup of kopi Jawa over a fag (sorry, Yanks, that’s a cigarette, not a poofter) is a pleasant way to hang out with your mates.

So inevitably the kill-joys, busily stamping on dissent in the blasphemy debate, and denouncing hair-straightening salons, have now turned their guns on a pastime that is not illegal and brings in vast revenue – uh-oh; revenue.

Money talks, here as much or more than elsewhere, so maybe the smokers’ health ban will be as effective as the smoking ban in Blok M Terminal…not.


79 Comments on “Anti Smoking Campaign, Jakarta”

  1. bs says:

    I visit the U.K. quite often, and the local pubs too. The pubs I’ve seen are all loaded (yes, also on weekdays).
    One thing that always surprises me is that the British girls often wear short skirts and that people are just ok to sit outside in the little gardens some pubs have, even when there’s snow on the streets.

    So I don’t really agree with Ross on the empty pubs and not sitting outside.
    Of course I do agree that Heathrow is horrible, to both smokers and non-smokers.

  2. Odinius says:

    Heathrow is just horrible, period.

  3. Oigal says:

    First, restricting smoking in public places is NOT an attack on anyone’s personal freedoms. Rather, in a Benthamite way, it is a way of increasing the total net freedom of a society. Why? I’ll give you an example – when smoking has been banned in pubs and restaurants, guess what happens? Business and patronage actually INCREASE because non-smokers feel more comfortable there and stay longer.

    Of course it is an attack on someone’s personal freedom freedom! It’s nonsense to suggest otherwise. You are not talking about goverment funded public areas in this case but privately funded pubs and restaurants. No one has to enter nor has to stay simple economics will dictate if the rightful owner has made the right decision or not.

    As for the patronage increases, well that would not appear to be the case in Australia Pubs.

    I do look forward to the next instalment on the HEALTH exclusion plan tho, Obviously motor cycle riders with no helmets don’t get treated. No Drivers License, no treatment.
    Excessive sugar/salt/Fried Food eaters out they go. The Fatties, let em rot. Too many children, only treat the first 2.5…….

  4. deta says:

    I do look forward to the next instalment on the HEALTH exclusion plan tho, Obviously motor cycle riders with no helmets don’t get treated.

    Aww…that’s cruel. Sad thing is, people that do not use helmet commonly are people who desperately need help and treatment in an accident.

    No Drivers License, no treatment.

    People can get driver license without doing an exam in Indonesia. I don’t think applying this health plan will make any difference on the road, unless the regulation about method to get a driver license is first improved.

    Excessive sugar/salt/Fried Food eaters out they go. The Fatties, let em rot.

    I dunno, but sure it will get a protest from a group of people calling them selves “big is beautiful”. Besides, it’s hard to set the limit of which people can and cannot get a treatment. Reject people who weigh more than 100 kilograms?

    Too many children, only treat the first 2.5

    I agree on this. Make it 2.

  5. Burung Koel says:

    Of course it is an attack on someone’s personal freedom freedom! It’s nonsense to suggest otherwise

    I paraphrased the argument of Jeremy Bentham regarding freedoms and rights. Have you any basis for your assertion, other than that you feel you have a ‘right’ to do anything you want, anywhere, and anytime?

    If that’s your limited view of what constitutes ‘rights’, then you’d benefit from reading a bit of old Jeremy, rather than let your addiction do your talking for you. That’s all smoking is, you know – a nicotine addiction. All that crap about personal enjoyment is basically an excuse, because addicts of tobacco need to smoke merely so they can feel the same way as the rest of us do all the time.

    And the head of a household spending 22 per cent of the family income on a drug for their personal use and ‘enjoyment’? If it was heroin there would be an outcry about irresponsibility from all corners, including you guys.

    Simple rule – if you want to smoke, go ahead. Just don’t do it in public places where it reduces the rights of others. Establish your own ‘cigar bar’ if you have to – funnily enough most of the ones in the US and Australia have gone broke due to lack of custom. Seems no-one wants to hang out with their fellow addicts. You meet a better class of people when you kick the habit, too.

    Do you think smokers will ever win a battle against further regulation? Will any western government go back on its current anti-smoking policies? You’re living in la-la land if you think so. Welcome to the 21st century.

    /I can troll with the best of you.

  6. Ross says:

    Burung, you started with quotes from Bentham, now you are doing quite a passable imitation of a Ross-Rail. Why should we be concerned about the chances of victory over repressive health-police-states? If the cause is just, one should fight for it no matter the odds.

    I thought my argument was very fair to non-smokers. If commercial enterprises want to have a free-choice policy, then they risk losing some die-hard anti-smoking fanatics.
    If, on the other hand, they want to ban smokers, then that too is their right- we smokers mayl go elsewhere.

    Unfortunately, state-sponsored interference, esp in the West but increasingly here too, is denying freedom on this issue.
    Obviously you don’t like smoking but you are at liberty to ban visitors to your home from lighting up. There’s no reason why you should seek to coerce businesses.

    I don’t like bars with loud cacaphonous music, which is probably damaging to health via ear-drum harm. So I don’t use them. Same for you and smokey pubs!

  7. Burung Koel says:

    If, on the other hand, they want to ban smokers, then that too is their right- we smokers mayl go elsewhere.

    Actually, Ross, that’s not how it works. Legislation is required to protect the rights of non-smokers. It’s not a simple matter of a premises putting up ‘No Smoking’ signs.

    Bartender: Excuse me, Sir, would you mind not smoking in here? You’re annoying the other customers.

    Customer: I have a perfect right to do so. There’s no law against it.

    Bartender: I’ll ask you again. Please don’t smoke in here.

    Customer: Ask me a third time and I’ll have my lawyer on your ass.

    And, in the absence of any legislation, the customer would be absolutely right. Even if he or she was in a privately owned pub or in a company office, or in an airport waiting room. The rules that apply to your home do not necessarily apply to all public or private places. There’s this thing called Common Law, which essentially means that if you want clean air, you need to pass specific laws to keep it that way.

    The onus is therefore on the government to pass laws giving companies/landlords/business owners the power to stop people smoking. How do you think airlines enforce no smoking rules? Through the Civil Aviation Act, not some company ‘mission statement’ and a few lights above your head. If it wasn’t for this kind of legislation, smokers will do what they damn well please, and the tobacco companies would come in all lawyered up to defend their ‘rights’.

    You only have to look at places without anti-smoking legislation to see the utter contempt that smokers have for other people when they want to feed their addiction. And loud music won’t kill you, Ross.

  8. Oigal says:

    Speaking of CRAP, you attribute motives to me that are not there. Personally, I would not eat in “smoking” restaurant. However if the “owner” of such an establishment decides he wants a “cigar time all the time” restaurant then how on earth is that the business of anyone else. It is not Public Space, its a place the public can choose to visit or not. Their choice his business.

    As for the head of the household’s spending habits, bizarre. You are not only going tell somebody what they can do or cannot do in their own funded business, you are now going to tell them what they can spend any profits they might make on. Or does your imposition of will only apply to poor people? Is the 22% guy a fool, yes, irresponsible no doubt but now you are going to regulate family spending habits, how very Mao of you.

    Why stop there? People are probably buying with their income, unsuitable books to read. What about those who give to much to their local religion to the detriment of their immediate family, shall we regulate that as well? Its a very orwellan slope you are standing on.

    Let me put another way, I save up some cash open a bar and decide that only smokers and golkar party members are welcome. What business is that of yours?? You don’t like it, go to another bar..seems pretty simple concept.

    Just don’t do it in public places where it reduces the rights of others. Establish your own ‘cigar bar’ if you have to – funnily enough most of the ones in the US and Australia have gone broke due to lack of custom.

    We are not talking about public spaces, we are talking about places privately funded, that the public can choose to use or not. As for going broke, make up your mind, our own logic fails you. If that was the case there would be no need for the law, you can’t have it both ways.

    That’s all smoking is, you know – a nicotine addiction. All that crap about personal enjoyment is basically an excuse, because addicts of tobacco need to smoke merely so they can feel the same way as the rest of us do all the time.

    Well someone is talking crap thats for sure. If I want to open an establishment that only accepts naked golkar members, then that is (or should be) my right and have nothing to do with santimonous nutters who believe that by some form of divine intervention they can intrude into my business.

    Deta, it is cruel and unacceptable, I was just trying to highlight the silliness of some the discussion here. Point was, it could be said that riding without a helmet is as health negative as smoking anyday so why one if not the other. Obviously cannot and should not be done. Twas sarcasm.

  9. Oigal says:

    The concept of private property and business as compare to public spaces seems beyond some.

    Through the Civil Aviation Act, not some company ‘mission statement’ and a few lights above your head. If it wasn’t for this kind of legislation, smokers will do what they damn well please, and the tobacco companies would come in all lawyered up to defend their ‘rights’.

    Simply untrue, you really should stop pretending the law (common law indeed) props up what is essentially a very weak position on intervention into peoples private lives. Differing airlines for years allowed smoking whilst others didn’t. Only a few years ago you wanted to smoke you flew Merparti, if you didn’t you flew Garuda. How about if Garuda decides to make its planes non-alcohol flights, by your logic because there is no government legislation then I could sue them- Nonsense. I could however choose to fly another carrier.

  10. ET says:

    As an ex-smoker I regret the bans didn’t come earlier. Although I admit that its influences on my physical health and feelings of well-being are rather negligible it might have given me a boost to overcome a bad habit that has cost me a lot of money and in the end had no greater effect than a bad breath, stinking clothes and filthy curtains.

  11. bs says:

    @deta

    For the record: to maintain the current population, an average of 2.1 children per family is needed. your 2 will shrink the numbers (which might be a good thing in Indonesia).

    For the smokers here: If you jumped off a high building, that’s your choice. But if you jumped of that building and hit another person on the head, thereby injuring him or her, that’s not very polite is it?

    So why would giving others a free chance of lung cancer be polite?
    I don’t mind people smoking, I’ve been a smoker myself for years. But please do mind others when you’re fixing your shot in a crowded and badly ventilated place.

  12. deta says:

    Deta, it is cruel and unacceptable, I was just trying to highlight the silliness of some the discussion here. Point was, it could be said that riding without a helmet is as health negative as smoking anyday so why one if not the other.

    Not wearing helmet or eating too much sugar and fat are only hazardous to yourself, not other people that share the same atmosphere with you. That’s a rather unfit analogy.

    I’d prefer to see the policy which targets the cigarettes companies rather than the smokers, as much as I’d prefer the punishment for the nicotine producers rather than the users.

  13. ET says:

    Not wearing helmet or eating too much sugar and fat are only hazardous to yourself, not other people that share the same atmosphere with you. That’s a rather unfit analogy.

    But it will make the insurance premiums go up which is hazardous to my economic health.

  14. Oigal says:

    I don’t mind people smoking, I’ve been a smoker myself for years. But please do mind others when you’re fixing your shot in a crowded and badly ventilated place.

    I agree and it is simply sensible and logical to ban smoking in Public Places, particularly those places the public has not other choice but to use or funded from the public purse (aka Airports). My issue is what consititues public vs private place. I remain firmly of the view, if i fund and manage a business then I decide what is good or not so good for that business, not some drifter looking for a cause.

  15. Oigal says:

    Not wearing helmet or eating too much sugar and fat are only hazardous to yourself, not other people that share the same atmosphere with you. That’s a rather unfit analogy.

    You obviously have not had to enjoy a long haul flight next to Mrs Fried Lard for breakfast, oh for Mr Skinny Smoker. Is there anyone who does not shudder as the lard arse waddles down the isle thinking “oh please don’t sit next to me”.

    Although the point I was making was not the “second hand effects” but if you are going to refuse to treat smokers then you have too, by the same logic refuse to treat the fatties and the helmet-less as they are self inflicting idiots as well. Only difference is they don’t pay as much tax during thier lifetime as the smoker to fund their on going health problems

  16. Burung Koel says:

    Ross and Oigsy, I input your details on the What Would Jeremy Bentham Do? website and they came back with the following answer:

    To create the maximum benefit for themselves and for humanity, both Ross and Oigal should give up smoking immediately.

    Stand up and repeat after me:

    “My name is Ross/Oigal, and I am an addict…”

    A couple of hundred meetings should do it.

  17. deta says:

    You obviously have not had to enjoy a long haul flight next to Mrs Fried Lard for breakfast, oh for Mr Skinny Smoker. Is there anyone who does not shudder as the lard arse waddles down the isle thinking “oh please don’t sit next to me”.

    I have. But sitting next to Mrs. Fried Lard didn’t cause me as much trouble as sitting next to Mr. Skinny Smoker.

  18. Oigal says:

    BK,

    I will let know you know the next time we need someone unqaulified and unwanted to tell us what products and processes I need to make my business profitable or not.

    BTW..If I must be smoker to be concerned at busy bodies dictating what products can and cannot be sold and used within my business. Then you must win the closet communist award. “Yes Comrade, I will only sell what you tell me to sell, use what you tell me to use and I will only spend my money on what you decide is good for me” (thats about the sum total of your point isn’t it?)

    Still awaiting on how you justify telling a private business person who owns a premises (that the public is under no obligation to enter) that he cannot allow people to smoke or not (or eat ham, wear funny hats or..) Also waiting on how the alcohol free flights are different from smoke free flights but without the heavy hand of government (It’s the free market at work)

    At the end of the day, you don’t like smoking thats fine and understandable not wrapped in it myself. But lets not confuse your personal dislikes with good governance.

  19. Burung Koel says:

    Still awaiting on how you justify telling a private business person who owns a premises (that the public is under no obligation to enter) that he cannot allow people to smoke or not (or eat ham, wear funny hats or..) Also waiting on how the alcohol free flights are different from smoke free flights but without the heavy hand of government (It’s the free market at work)

    @ Oigal

    Obviously you’ve never been a bartender who has asked a patron to stop smoking in a No Smoking area. You’ve never met a lawyer, either, have you? Or had any experience with the tobacco lobby, I take it. You think I’m making this up?

    Give up, in all senses – you will feel better. It’s the addiction talking.

  20. Oigal says:

    No just part of a family that owned two very successful hotels in two Australian States! Laugh…nice try. I grew up in the environment and went on to manage both the family hotels and others for several years (and yup that means time as the bartender)

    By the way you are aware of the provisions of refusing service are you not?

    So if you want to lecture someone on running a hotel, perhaps I am not the best bloke to try and lecture to. If you cannot control your patrons smoking habits then you have no business in the hotel industry because you certainly would not be able to control the more anti-social behaviour that occurs with the addition of booze.

    You think I’m making this up?

    No I am thinking you have no idea of the realities of business beyond your own personal prejudices. Which of course your are entitled to, just don’t ask me to cater for them within my business. I may do so of course then again I may not, my choice not yours.

  21. Dikkiman Sujengkol says:

    Mr. Oigal,

    From your talks with Guru Besar Achmad Sudarsono I can see that you want to keep the Brown Man down. Everyone knows the Brown Man likes to smoke Kretek, a sign of virility.

    Maybe you just don’t like the Brown Man displaying virility ?

  22. Oigal says:

    Gee that’s clever.

  23. Dikkiman Sujengkol says:

    Mr. Oigal,

    I see you are a man who is only satisfied with the Indonesian Man serving him as a White Man, cigarettes or no. More than two thirds of Indonesia’s male population smokes Kretek — why would you respond as you did if there was any other reason than wanting to see the Melayu Man serve you ?

  24. bs says:

    Dear Dikkiman,

    The Kretek smoking is the result of a secret government program to keep the population within limits. It has both direct and indirect effects. First, the smoker dies young. Second, because he’ll be impotent after smoking a couple of years, he will produce less offspring.
    This keeps the population within limits.

    Other countries prefer anti-conception programs, but the pre-modern masyarakat in Indonesia is not ready for this yet. How would wives prove their husbands infidelity if they use condoms? There would be no bastards anymore.

    I’m sorry you had to find out this way.

  25. Burung Koel says:

    @ Oigal

    If you were a non-smoker, we’re not even having this conversation. Your nicotine addiction is getting in your way of understanding what ‘rights’ might mean to different people.

    I take it from your vast experience in the hotel industry in Australia that you understand anti-smoking legislation applying to pubs and clubs came about initially because of the negative impact of passive smoke on staff? It was this workplace safety aspect that provided the impetus for the legislation that protected the ‘right’ to a safe working environment. That safe working environment also includes giving staff the necessary legal authority to deal with a recalcitrant patron without resorting to heavy handed measures that put staff and the public in further danger. Without appropriate legislation, it would be a legal minefield if a case ever got to court, as I’m sure you know.

    My Benthamite argument takes this approach and applies it more generally to public places and situations, where your ‘rights’ as a smoker should not be allowed to trample on the ‘right’ of the majority of people to clean air. And without legislation to protect that, the experience has been that smokers continue to put satisfying their addiction ahead of the ‘public good’ (to bring Bentham back into it).

    As my kids would say: ‘You wouldn’t know a right if it was having sex with your face.’

    /My trolling here is done. Addicts are easy pickings.

  26. BrotherMouzone says:

    I take it from your vast experience in the hotel industry in Australia that you understand anti-smoking legislation applying to pubs and clubs came about initially because of the negative impact of passive smoke on staff?

    Completely agree. I never saw these laws as being there to protect the customers – people can choose freely to go to a bar or not.

    They protect bar staff from inhaling poisons for the entirety of their shift. The idea that bar staff should be forced to work in conditions likely to cause cancer is a repugnant one.

  27. Ross says:

    Oh, Brother! Staff who sign up for a job in a smoking-tolerant pub know what they’re getting into, Nobody forces them to take the job, and nobody forces them to stay if they weary of it.
    As for transportation, when I see an angkot coming, I hope the seat beside the driver is free, so I can smoke. Inside, the angkot is far too cramped to enjoy my harmless habit freely, for it would affect other passengers, so I don’t smoke. And before you ask, if the driver asked me not to smoke, I wouldn’t. It’s his angkot.

    Planes used indeed to allow smoking, and why not? Same with trains. A separate smoking compartment provided a congenial environment for those who enjoyed a cigarette, while others were free from the smell etc.

    Non-smokers used to sit happliy in pubs with their smoking pals, but since the health freakos started whining, people have become more intolerant. It’s a shame.

  28. Odinius says:

    Oigal said:

    “Still awaiting on how you justify telling a private business person who owns a premises (that the public is under no obligation to enter) that he cannot allow people to smoke or not (or eat ham, wear funny hats or..) Also waiting on how the alcohol free flights are different from smoke free flights but without the heavy hand of government (It’s the free market at work)”

    You can stop him from allowing guns to be brought in. You can stop him from allowing people to shoot up heroin. You can stop him from allowing dog fights. Etc.

  29. Ross says:

    But those things are illegal – you can’t have dog-fights in the street or your home, can you? Or use heroin? Or keep guns if you don’t have a license? Smoking is not illegal. Yet…but maybe soon, along with drinking? God save us!

  30. bs says:

    Smoking is illegal in bars and restaurants, just like having a gun without a license is.
    The lawmakers can put any conditions they fancy on a law. With or without a license, in or outside a bar…

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