Smoking, one of
Indonesia’s Biggest problems, a literally inexhaustible
matter to be discussed, a dilemma that shadowing our life. Why does smoking
always be something controverted? What does the benefit of smoking? Lets talk
about this from its each point of view, whether the positive one or the negative
one.
Firstly, let me explain
about the negative side of smoking. Smoking is known as one of the causes of chronic diseases. Smoking has killed more people than the combination of other diseases
such as AIDS, malnutrition, drugs, car accidents, suicide, alcohol,
violence, and wildfire. Cigarette contains
thousand of harmful ingredient like Tar, Nicotine, Carbon Monoxide (CO), and
7.000 chemical ingredient. Can you imagine it when all those poisons go through our body and settle inside for years?! It can cause lungs cancer, heart disease,
emphysema, and many more. And hardly believe, all risks above will not only be obtained by the active smokers but also the passive smokers.
Now guess it, how many
people in Indonesia are smokers? A health
expert,
Prof dr Tjandra Yoga Aditama said there are 57.750.592 active smokers (link
here). If one smoker
smokes in public area and creats at least five passive smokers, how many people
will be dying from the diseases? how many innocent people will be their victim?
Ironically, most of the smokers are poor people. For them,
cigarette takes the second place of their life priority after rice. They do
sacrifice everything just for a box of cigarette, unpardonable sin!
Believe it or
not, the active smokers is also dominated by the youngsters. Global Youth
Tobacco survey (GYTS) declared that Indonesia got the highest number of younger
smokers in the world. In my neighborhood, many under age kids can smoke
freely. It seems like there's no age restriction, They can buy it in
every store, and confidently smoke in public area without any worry.
Do you still remember how Indonesia’s ever been a hot issue when a six years old kid named Dihan Muhammad highlighted as the addicted consumer of this harmful thing? Awfully, at that time Indonesia stunned the world by this scandal (Link here). I couldn't believe, how did he know about smoking in such young age? When the other kids around his age were busy playing, this kid acted like an adult, prefer to stay at home, busy with his cigarette. And the worst thing was his parents couldn't stop him! i watched the video before, his dad was smoking 'together' with him. Right at that point, i realized, his environment was the one that can be blamed.
Dihan Muhammad
By all those negative
sides of smoking, everyone hopes this problem can be solved, and most people
want all the cigarette factories can be closed.
I think it’s enough to talk about the negative sides
of smoking, now lets move to the opposite, the positive sides of smoking that
has been told by some people.
