East Timor has one of the highest smoking rates in the world, with nearly two-thirds of its men hooked on the habit. Why is one of South East Asia’s poorest nations so addicted to tobacco?
Tobacco is part of the fabric of East Timor – walking through the dark alleyways of market stalls, the air is sweet with the smell of raw tobacco on sale among the neatly stacked piles of tomatoes, potatoes, squashes and beans.
Most cigarettes cost less than $1 (60p) a packet. They are stacked under large sun umbrellas bearing the logos of various brands, such as L.A. and Vinte e Tres.
All carry health warnings but these are effectively meaningless to many smokers – about half the adult population can’t read.
In the capital, Dili, the iconic Marlboro cowboy still rides the range on posters above shops, despite having ridden into the sunset in most other countries where advertising is banned or restricted.
According to figures from the Journal of the American Medical Association, 33% of East Timor’s population smoke every day. The figure for men stands at 61% – the highest in the world.
“Young people are smoking more and more each year, especially young boys,” says Dr Jorge Luna, The World Health Organisation’s local representative. “It is a very serious problem.”
Almost half the population is under 15 and increasingly the demand, especially among the young, is for Western-type cigarettes, often sold singly from packets displayed invitingly along the roadside.
“One cigarette is 10 cents, if you buy two it’s 20 cents, if you buy four it will be 25 cents,” says Luna. Tobacco grown by small-scale farmers for roll-your-own cigarettes is even cheaper than the named brands that are often imported from neighbouring Indonesia.
Countries with highest smoking rates
Kiribati
Macedonia
Papua New Guinea
Bulgaria
Tonga
East Timor
Figures for 2012. Source: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, published by JAMA
East Timor’s schools have virtually no health education with regard to smoking. “I’ve witnessed first-hand teachers who smoke while teaching [while] they’re there on the blackboard writing,” says Luc Sabot, East Timor’s director of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency.
“The whole school system has absolutely no regulation on tobacco use in school.”
Near one school, I watch a young man, cigarette in hand, sitting astride a motorbike with a Marlboro logo, casually chatting to a young woman.
The scene reminds me of a controversial advertising campaign for Vinte e Tres that ran in the capital last year, depicting a cool looking young man, clad in black, on a black motorbike.
The slogan read defiantly “Proud of Yourself”. Initially the posters contained no health warnings, and after protests from health campaigners they were taken down.
They were then put back up again, this time with a small warning at the bottom. When the campaign had run its course, some of the banners became improvised wall coverings for tin-roofed shacks.
