Eleven years ago, there was a global media frenzy over outrageous footage of an Indonesian baby smoker.
The child was only two years old. But he smoked cigarettes on a par with adult heavy smokers.
Ardi Rizal comes from a village on the island of Sumatra, his father offered him his first cigarette.
It sounds shocking, but the man found it amusing to watch his tiny son act like an adult.
In addition, sadly, in Indonesia, the problem of children’s smoking is particularly acute.
Children under 10 with a cigarette in the country do not seem like something out of the ordinary.
Adults here smoke all the time, setting a negative example.
The country is simply a paradise for tobacco magnates.
Advertisements for tobacco products are placed everywhere on the roads and in public places, and cigarettes are also advertised on television.
When the video of Ardi smoking went around the world, the public outcry forced the Indonesian government to take notice of the difficulty.
A national campaign against child smoking was launched.
Everything was far from easy with Ardi, by the time of “fame” the child was already smoking more than a pack a day.
His parents put him in a rehabilitation center, which is sad, the main reason was the high cost of addiction, and not concern for his health.
The boy’s mother said that she tried to cope with his smoking habit on her own, but Ardie became ill without cigarettes, and he threw tantrums.
Doctors understood that it was pointless to talk to a two-year-old child about the dangers of smoking, and it was dangerous to use drugs to combat his addiction.
