DRAFT GOVERNMENT REGULATION ON TOBACCO FULL OF IMPORTED TEXTS

To regulate about clove cigarettes in Indonesia, the “legal substance” must be imparted from foreign countries. For the sake of a bill, the legislators countries. For the sake of a bill, the legislators are willing to take a long tiring journey to obtain an illustration about the legal substance and implementation of laws of other nations. With APBN fund of billions of Rupiah, legislators buy the law of foreign nations who have different characteristics and culture.

This is a brief summary of the opinion of university legal observer, Muria Kudus Zamhuri, and Research Director of Indonesian Catalog Research Institution, Andriea Salamun, today in Jakarta.

The bill has been prepared long before by other nations. Scientific argument is also designed in accordance with scientific principles. “There are at least more than 70,000 results that give judgment on clove cigarettes”, Muria Kudus Zamhuri, told Business News (7/25).

There is not a single result of research that comes from research on materials derived from Indonesian clove cigarettes product. Because they are shadowed with imported thinking paradigm, the result of research of foreign nations is applied to judge Indonesian clove cigarettes. “Therefore, clove cigarettes are considered hazardous based on theory and health argument”.

A real example of import regulation is warning label inside clove cigarette’s package. The label reads: “Smoking May Cause Cancer, Heart Attack, Impotency, and Pregnancy and Fetal Disorder” is actually an opinion and result of research which were accepted without reserve.

A question that needs to be conveyed and has not received any answer from research activities until now, whether by regulators, academicians, and clove cigarettes stakeholders because the claim on the cigarette’s package also contains such warning.

At the international level, there is a legal instruments ruling about cigarettes distribution. The instruments ruling about cigarettes distribution. The instrument is the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC).

Research Director of Indonesian Catalog Institution, Andriea Salamun, said that Indonesia and America have not signed FCTC. FCTC is a treaty or international instrument made under supervision of WHO. FCTC was made and developed with the aim to respond to tobacco consumption epidemic in the global era.

Strangely, some of the regulations always put more emphasis on tobacco sector and tobacco product industry (IHT). “While in fact, there are other stakeholders, namely the government as the regulator, the public as consumers, and other local or foreign interest groups as pressure group”.

Unfortunately, regulation on tobacco and IHT does not fully describe assurance of those principles.

The fact is that there are still certain groups, domestically or internationally, who have high access to economic and political resources. There accesses could reduce the manifestation of autonomy of law in Indonesia.

According to him, the government only acted submissively and resonantly in the Draft Government Regulation (RPP) and Draft Law (RUU) concerning tobacco and IHT which contain a copied/pasted text of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

The substance of FCTC which receives a hard reaction from the Indonesian public and clove cigarettes stakeholders cannot be just adopted to become a legal substance applicable in Indonesia. There is a highly complex problem that may generate a new problem if it the Law or Government Regulation contains a copied/pasted text from FCTC.

“Legal products in Indonesia should be based on the Five Basic Principles (Pancasila) ideology as mentioned by Soekarno the proclaimed as “Philosofische grondslad and must be based on the 1945 Constitution”.   


Business News - July 27, 2012