Video: Toddler Sucking on a Kretek

Here’s another one for all of you people out there who came unglued when the sale of Indonesian kretek cigarettes, cigarettes that are flavored with cloves, cigarettes that have some of the highest concentrations of nicotine in the world, was banned in America.

Indonesia’s single most popular export, worldwide, is the kretek. A substance that is now illegal in my country. Many Indonesians begin smoking as children but this video evokes extreme disgust from me. Disgust and extreme wonder.



Wonder in the sheer ignorance that this child’s parents possess.

The boy, Ardi Rizal, is hooked on nicotine. Having smoked since he was 18 months old, he is now so hooked that he throws a tantrum when his parents refuse to give him a smoke.

Reminding me of the storm of comments that I received on my two blog postings on what a great thing outlawing these deadly leaf-filled tubes is. A great start.

Because aside from age, I really see no difference between young Ardi and the kretek smokers out there who have raged over the loss of their self-destructive habit.

From Clove Cigarettes to Clove Cigars

At the risk of receiving more hits from the kretek-loving public – my previous post on the banning of kretek, or clove cigarettes remains a daily top hit earner even to this day – I need to make a further observation on this issue, this time concentrating on what the kretek importers are planning to do in the face of the ban on their product which will take effect at the end of this month.

According to this AP article, importers of kretek, cigarettes that are flavored with cloves among other things, specifically Kretek, International, a Moorpark, California-based company that purportedly handles 97% of all clove-related smoking products in the United States, has a plan in place that they will execute when the federal ban on clove cigarettes goes into effect at the end of September.

They will simply shift their product offering to clove cigars.

Cigars, you see, do not fall under the federal cigarette ban as they are, by definition, not cigarettes. Any tobacco wrapped by paper is a cigarette. Any tobacco product, however, that is wrapped by tobacco leaves, is by definition, a cigar.

So they plan on replacing their cigarette offerings to their kretek-smoking public with clove-flavored cigars.

Now having consumed both, I know that there is a distinctive difference between cigarette tobacco and cigar tobacco. Cigar tobacco undergoes a different curing process giving the tobacco smoke a harsher quality that often prevents cigar smokers from inhaling the smoke into their lungs.

However, according to the American Cancer Society, former cigarette smokers that turn to cigars in order to maintain their habit often inhale the smoke as is their habit.

From the American Cancer Society:

“While almost all cigarette smokers inhale, most cigar smokers do not. This may be because cigar smoke is generally more irritating. For those who do not inhale, tobacco smoke does not reach the lungs in the same quantity as it does in cigarette smokers. Therefore, the risk of death from lung cancer is not as high as it is for cigarette smokers, but is still three times higher than the risk for nonsmokers. Cigar smokers with a history of cigarette smoking, however, are more likely to inhale. Those who inhale have an increased risk of death from lung cancer eleven times greater than that of nonsmokers.”

“The risks for those who inhale are also increased in other types of cancer. Compared to nonsmokers, cigar smokers who inhale deeply are six times more likely to die from oral cancer, twice as likely to die from esophageal cancer, and 39 times more likely to die from cancer of the larynx. They also face more than twice the risk of death from pancreatic cancer and more than three times the risk of death from bladder cancer compared to nonsmokers.”

So, good news/bad news.

The good news is that those who are hooked on kretek can continue their habit unimpeded by federal law. They just have to alter the product that they purchase. This is in itself fashionable given the number of famous entertainers, both men and women, which have switched to cigars. It has become very classy to hold a tube of burning stinky leaves in your mouth.

The bad news is that the cancer issue that has always loomed as a consequence of this habit is now just that much more of an issue.

Sale of Kretek Banned in America

To anyone who has lived in or visited Indonesia, the country that was once called home by President Barack Obama, the smell of a burning kretek or clove cigarette is a poignant reminder of the exotic smells that permeate that country.

Well, clove cigarette smoke, mixed with the smell of burning kerosene lamps, barbecueing satay . . . and sweat.

So it became somewhat of a novelty to me today when I read in the news that among the things that HR 1256, the tobacco bill that just passed both houses of Congress and is en route to Barack Obama’s desk for his signature, is the ban on the sale of clove cigarettes.

Because clove cigarettes, a rarity here, are among the classification of sweetened cigarettes that appeal to children.

The whole gamut of provisions within HR 1256 are listed at MSNBC’s website. Among them, they write this:

“Smokers, particularly the younger crowd, will find they can no longer buy cigarettes sweetened by candy flavors or any herb or spices such as strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon or vanilla.”

Indonesians love their clove cigarettes. Everyone who smokes there smoke clove cigarettes. It is a huge industry. As a matter of fact the maker of the most popular brand of kretek, Djarum, employs over 75,000 people at its factories. They have over 250,000 hectares of arable land planted in tobacco and the nicotine levels in the tobacco varies depending on where the tobacco grows. One Djarum brand is known to have the highest concentration of nicotine in the world.

And one more fun fact about clove cigarettes. Indonesia, known to Europeans in a bygone era as “The Spice Islands,” uses so many cloves to produce their cigarettes that it is a net importer of that spice.

But like I said, you don’t smell it very often around here And I guess websites like this one will have to stop selling and shipping Djarum to America

And it’s about time.