Tobacco News

Aldi Suganda Rizal, the Indonesian “smoking baby” seen around the world on video, has stopped smoking. Suganda’s mother put him into rehab for thirty days. Aldi Suganda’s habit of smoking 40 cigarettes a day was perhaps even more startling than the video that made him famous. The “smoking baby” was introduced to the habit by his father.
Indonesia has almost no regulations placed on its tobacco industry. 30 percent of Indonesian children try their first cigarette before they turn 10 years old.

Aldi Suganda being a smoking baby isn’t unique there, either. Aris Merdeka Serait, CEO of the National Committee of Child Protection, told CBS News that his organization discovered other “smoking baby” cases there this year, with some children starting as young as one year of age.

Whether the “smoking baby” will permanently stop smoking is hard to predict. His mother Diana has been given tools and assistance to help him, but there will be many temptations in his home village.

It’s a good thing that the “smoking baby” finally got treatment to help him break the addiction and quit smoking. But the remarks about the Indonesian tobacco market are very telling. Some people argue that unfettered markets are a benefit to consumer and businessman alike. What is the benefit to a two-year-old boy who winds up addicted to cigarettes? The tobacco sellers got their money from the former smoking baby’s 40 cigarettes a day, but what did he get other than a crippling addiction and a risk for cancer?

Stories like that of Algi Suganda Rial are more likely to happen when the”free market” is allowed to run rampant. Companies who aren’t made to care who they hurt refuse to care. Indonesia’s tobacco industry is proof of that.