24 May 2010

THIS IS WHAT A SMOKING TOODLER LOOKS LIKE



This is the two-year-old Indonesian boy who throws a tantrum when his parents refuse him a cigarette.

Ardi Rizal was given his first cigarette by his father when he was just 18-months-old.
The smoking toddler was witnessed by a reporter who recently visited his home in the fishing village of Musi Banyuasin, in Indonesia's South Sumatra province.
'I'm not worried about his health, he looks healthy,' shrugged the boy's father Mohammad Rizal.
'He cries and throws tantrums when we don't let him smoke. He's addicted.'
Ardi's youth is the extreme of a disturbing trend. Data from the Central Statistics Agency showed 25 per cent of Indonesian children aged three to 15 have tried cigarettes, with 3.2 per cent of those active smokers.
The percentage of five to nine year olds lighting up increased from 0.4 per cent in 2001 to 2.8 per cent in 2004, the agency reported.
A video of a four-year-old Indonesian boy blowing smoke rings appeared briefly on YouTube in March, prompting outrage before it was removed from the site. Hey let him smoke. Maybe then he might lose some weight and not die from heart disease.

-AL

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