JAKARTA - Director of the Institute for Demographic and Poverty Studies (IDEAS) Research Institute Yusuf Wibisono said, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of smokers actually increased.
"The prevalence of smoking has actually increased during the pandemic. Even among the poor," Yusuf said, Tuesday, June 21, quoted from Antara.
Based on data from the National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas), the number of smokers in 2019 was 57.2 million people. In 2021, there will be an increase of 2.1 million people to 59.3 million smokers and public spending on cigarettes will increase from IDR 344.4 trillion to IDR 365.7 trillion.
"Every year people spend trillions to buy cigarettes," he said.
IDEAS also found that poverty does not always have implications for decreasing cigarette consumption, let alone quitting smoking.
According to him, the general strategy of poor smokers is to switch to cheap cigarettes, in fact they often expect gifts from others.
In 2021, there will be 7.3 million smokers who are not working with an estimated spending on cigarettes reaching IDR 6.8 trillion per year.
"Unemployed don't have any money at all but it turns out they still don't stop smoking," he said.
Yusuf said that cigarettes in most Indonesians have become an important basic need. Even some of these smokers have experienced food insecurity situations.
"A total of 0.6 million smokers admit that they have not eaten all day because they have no money but are still smoking. That is, they are willing to starve, the important thing is to keep smoking. Cigarette addiction in our society is extraordinary," he said.
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