Ninety percent health warnings have majority support

Most Indonesians support the use of graphic health warnings on cigarette packs and agree that the size of the pictures should be increased, according to a story in the Jakarta Globe quoting the results of a recent survey.

The national survey on the implementation of graphic health warnings in Indonesia found that 84 percent of respondents agreed that the graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging made them concerned about the dangers of smoking.

It found also that 90 percent of respondents agreed that the size of the graphic images should be increased to cover 90 percent of the packaging. Indonesia currently requires that at least 40 percent of the surface of packs should be covered with health warnings.

The survey was carried out by 20 institutions including the Indonesian Tobacco Research Alliance, the Association of Indonesian Public Health Experts’ Tobacco Control Support Center and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.

The survey, whose results were released yesterday, was conducted between March 2014 and March 2015 and involved 5,409 respondents in 18 cities.