New Order Era Cigarette Factory Many Sponsors Of Free Treatment

Hand-tricked cigarettes at the cigarette factory PT Karyadibya Mahardhika, Kediri, which was opened on May 16, 2023, and absorbed 1,467 workers. (Between/Prasetia Fauzani)

JAKARTA - Cigarette businesses often get a place in the archipelago. The products are always selling well. Various kinds of people even become customers who remain kretek and white cigarettes. This narrative made the growth of cigarette factories and consumers increase sharply in the New Order (Orba) era.

Everything changed when cigarettes began to become scapegoats for various deadly diseases. Medical research and dangers of smoking shocked smokers all over the country. However, cigarette factories are in tactics. They perpetuate the study of sponsoring many free medical activities.

Nothing is impossible in the cigarette business. Cigarette kretek or white cigarettes. The business was able to bring abundant profits to anyone who owns the business. The profit narrative of cigarette business has been proven by an bumiputra during the Dutch colonial era.

The narrative added that another term was because an bumiputra had a white subordinate. A thing that was considered insane was because it was impossible in the Dutch era. The figure is Nitisemito, the owner of a cigarette factory with the stamp Bal Tiga in Kudus, Central Java.

Nitisemito's success also inspired the bumiputras and Chinese descendants to participate in the cigarette business. The results were brilliant. Many home industries and then cigarette factories grew and were strong. Economic recession alone was unable to make the cigarette business decline in the economic recession of the 1930s and 1960s.

Cigarette factories then crowded up when Indonesia became independent. Even though the Nitisemito cigarette business has been destroyed and is not left behind. The cigarette industry continues to grow and match itself with the tastes of the times. Creative advertisements are often perpetuated to expand the market share of cigarette consumers.

In the New Order era, especially. The New Order government likes to support the cigarette industry. All because cigarettes are able to generate profits through excise activities. Every day, cigarette enthusiasts, especially kretek cigarettes, are increasing. This existence is evidenced by the increasing production of kretek cigarettes every year.

Cretek production does fluctuate, but the trend is more frequent. According to data from the Association of Indonesian Cigarette Manufacturers (Gappri), the 1959-1970 period was relatively stable and the highest production occurred in 1967 with a total of 23,165,132,067 sticks. Three years later (1970) this number decreased to only 18,147,835,339 cigarettes. For the 1971-1983 period, production averaged up about 11.18 percent per year.

"In 1973 the number has reached 30,221,663,229 sticks, and ten years later it has more than doubled, namely in 1983 there were 65,210,612,738 sticks. The peak increase in production was driven by the application of filters for kretek which began in 1970, accompanied by increasingly good packaging appearances. Kretek also managed to attract consumers of 'dongan' as well as displacing the dominance of white cigarettes among elite consumers," explained JA Noertjahyo in the book 1000 Years of the Archipelago (2000).

The extension of the New Order-era cigarette business is indeed lucrative. However, on the other hand, many world activists have begun to aggressively perpetuate the anti-smoking campaign in the 1970s. The campaign was echoed because the smoker's lifestyle was considered the culprit for the emergence of a deadly disease.

Smoking can cause a variety of diseases. From heart disease to cancer. The impact is no joke. passive smokers can get severe disease. According to the language of medical research, people can die from cigarettes. The anti-smoking campaign also irritated cigarette factories in the archipelago.

However, it is not a cigarette factory called if it loses its mind immediately. The narrative of the spread of negative impacts from cigarettes was immediately responded to by the big breakthrough of cigarette entrepreneurs. They perpetuate their social concern by sponsoring various kinds of positive activities.

Cigarette factories then sponsor a lot and perpetuate free treatment programs for their consumers. The program is perpetuated to fight the negative stigma of anti-smoking campaigns. The treatment programs carried out by cigarette factories also vary. From Tuberculosis (TBC) to donating lips. The activity was allegedly a form of anti-smoking campaign resistance and against it with a free treatment campaign.

Related to this, large cigarette companies are busy carrying out health rehabilitation programs to fight negative stigma and this smoking ban movement. Health care programs sponsored by cigarette factories.

The programs include mass free treatment for TB disease, free treatment for cleft lip surgery, free treatment for eye disease surgery, sanitation and infiltration wells, prevention of dengue fever, mass blood donation, and others, including PT Gudang Garam, PT. Djarum, and PT. Norojono, "Bedjo Riyanto said in the book Siasat Packing Enjoy: Lifestyle Ambiguity in Cigarette Ads During the Dutch East Indies Period to Post New Order 1925-2000 (2019).