Indonesia Will Become The Largest Consumer Of E-Cigarettes In Southeast Asia? Let’s Check The Facts

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Youth Council for Tobacco Control (IYCTC) said that Indonesia is predicted to become the largest share of electronic cigarettes in the form of vape which will beat Malaysia in the Southeast Asia region.

"Indonesia itself has experienced a significant increase in sales of electronic cigarettes, from 2015 to 2019. It is even projected that Indonesia will soon beat Malaysia as the electronic cigarette market in Southeast Asia," said member of the Youth Led Team from IYCTC Oktavian Denta in the Electronic Cigarette Dissemination which was followed closely online in Jakarta, Wednesday.

Denta said that Indonesia had been targeted by electronic cigarette producers as the next market share for the electronics industry. This is evident from the significant increase in sales of e-cigarettes from 2015 to 2019 based on research from Euromonitor in 2020.

The Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) in 2021 also stated that the increase occurred because the number of electronic cigarette users aged 15 years and over was increasing from 480 thousand users or around 0.3 percent in 2011 to 6.6 million users or 3.0 percent. in 2021.

Denta regretted that this prediction might actually happen because the results of the 2018 Basic Health Research (Riskesdas) stated that 2.8 percent of electronic users in Indonesia are young people who are still students.

"Based on data from the National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas) in 2017 and 2019, as well as Riskesdas 2018, it is said that more than 95 percent of electronic cigarette users in Indonesia are dual users," he said.

IYCTC Investigation Team member Jordan Vegard Ahar added that consumption related to electronic cigarettes in Indonesia itself is now increasingly popular and continues to grow.

From the data he got from the Ministry of Industry of the Republic of Indonesia in 2020, Indonesia already has distributors or importers of electronic cigarettes as many as 150 companies, 300 factories producing liquids (liquid), 100 companies producing tools and accessories, 5.000 retailers in the form of retail stores and 18.677 liquids from Indonesia. liquid favor sales.

Jordan said that of the nine regencies/cities surveyed by his team, he found at least 500 stores selling these electronic cigarettes.

According to him, this can happen because of the rise of promotional advertisements on social media and the lack of policies that Indonesia has in regulating the circulation and use of electronic cigarettes.

Worse, even though all the shops surveyed admitted that they did not give their children permission to buy them, they could still buy e-cigarettes freely. Of the 24 users he interviewed, 11 of them admitted that they were under 18 years of age.

Even seven users claimed to buy it because they want to look cool in their social circle. Some even claim to be able to buy through their friends.

Jordan hopes that the government can immediately make clear regulations, especially policies that regulate the proliferation of advertising promotions on social media that are often used by children, as well as in-depth studies related to how easy it is for children to buy electronic cigarettes.

“Most of them are prohibited and do not get permission from their parents to consume e-cigarettes. But because they want to follow the trends that exist in society, they end up consuming them,” said Jordan.