In the spring of 2010, a video of a baby smoking a cigarette went viral and became an international sensation. When the laughter stops, the world moves on. But the story isn’t just about a kid’s addiction. If you thought the public health fight against tobacco was over, think again.
It’s the story of how falling smoking rates in the West are driving tobacco giants to find new consumers in some of the poorest countries on earth. They go to great lengths to take the same product, the same deceptive marketing practices and ship it all over the world.
Vanguard undercover listened to Big Tobacco speak behind closed doors, and they took to the streets to meet a small group of activists fighting for change in this country, where the overwhelming message was loud and clear: Cigarettes are cool, cigarettes are fun, and cigarettes are sexy. They set out to find the world’s most famous smoker, and in the process stumble upon a looming global health crisis.
In Times Square in the heart of New York City, you’ll find an ad for just about anything. But one product was conspicuously missing amidst the bright lights and gaudy billboards. In the United States, cigarette advertising has been almost completely eliminated. A pack of cigarettes will set you back as much as $12. New York City is now the most expensive place in the country to buy cigarettes. This is largely due to the huge sin taxes imposed by municipal and state governments to strongly discourage consumers from smoking. A far cry from the past. Not long ago, America was Marlboro country.
Cigarettes are the only consumer product that, when used as directed, kills half of its long-term customers. The global health crisis continues, and the threat is truly greater than ever. Smoking will kill a billion people this century if we don’t act. One billion deaths, nearly 80 percent of which will occur in developing countries. That’s where Big Tobacco is headed to make up for lost revenue in the U.S. and Europe. The industry is finding new consumers in some of the world’s poorest countries.
For Westerners, stepping off a plane in Indonesia is in a way like stepping back in time. The onslaught of cigarette advertising really starts when you hit the streets. This type of marketing, which has largely disappeared in the West, now reaches Indonesia. Advertisement after advertisement associated cigarettes with images of independence, adventure and, above all, youth.
The ubiquitous cigarette advertising is not limited to the capital Jakarta either. Even on the dirt roads of many of the country’s countryside, it’s the only aspect of the Indonesian landscape that remains constant. For Big Tobacco, Indonesia offers fertile and perhaps irresistible new territory with little or no government regulation of the tobacco industry. Indonesia is the new Marlboro country.
