A two-year-old toddler in South Sumatra, Indonesia, has become addicted to cigarettes, smoking around forty a day.
The parents of Aldi Rizal say their boy started smoking cigarettes at 18 months old when his father, Muhammad, introduced him to the habit. They say Rizal screams, slams his head against the floor and even gets sick with withdrawal if he does not get his cigarettes.
His father pays 50,000 rupiah (five U.S. dollars) every day for two packs of Marlboro cigarettes – Rizal’s favourite. Yet Muhammad, 30, a fisherman, claims his son is in healthy condition, weighing 25 kilograms.
Rizal is undergoing a rehabilitation program under the supervision of Indonesia’s National Child Protection Commission.
The commission also provides psychological treatment for the toddler. Footage of the child smoking that had been posted on the video sharing website, YouTube, drew world-wide attention to the incident.
Some cities in Indonesia, including Jakarta, have banned smoking in public places but the rules are widely flouted. The industry minister said that between 1960-2005, cigarette production jumped more than six-fold to 220 billion cigarettes.
The boy has been under the care of the National Commission on Child Protection since late last month and is receiving psychological therapy, commission chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait said.
“We have managed to reduce cigarettes he smokes from 40 to 20,” he said. “We keep him busy with activities such as learning, playing and going on recreational trips, but it’s very hard to wean tobacco addicts of cigarettes and it takes time.” Sirait said the commission was also treating two other smoking infants.
“Many smoking parents are unaware of the danger of smoking and they just give children their cigarettes when they ask for them,” he added. He also blamed the phenomenon on blatant cigarette advertising on television.
