REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Several members of a people`s group called `Cigarettes Community` have demanded that the Jakarta government revise Governor`s Regulation number 88/2010 that abolishes the presence of smoking room inside buildings in Jakarta.

"Before the issuance of the regulation, each building in Jakarta had its own special room for smoking. But now we have none," the coordinator of  'Cigarettes Community`  Abhisam DM said here on Monday. Abhisam explained that the situation compels many smokers in Jakarta to smoke carelessly in public places and even in air-conditioned rooms. "This is harmful to other people," he said.

Regulation number 88/2010 abolishes previous regulation number 75/2005 about the request to building managements to provide smoking areas inside buildings. Jakarta`s Governor Fauzi Bowo earlier said, "It is easier to expel someone than building a (smoking) room."

He defended the decision stating that the US has also scrapped smoking rooms in airports, forcing smokers to light up outdoors. He said that people had to be ready to face the risk of declining visitors but they also had to calculate the benefits that the regulation would provide to the people as a whole.

"The cost and benefit must be taken into account. The long-term benefit will be more with more non-smoking visitors to buildings than those with higher numbers of smoking visitors but at an increased risk for the negative impact of smoking," he said.

The head of the regional environment management, Peni Susanti, said that the revision of the governor`s regulation was based on a survey that pointed out that a smoking area in a building does not help protect dwellers, workers or visitors who do not smoke.

The survey carried out in conjunction with Swisscontact Indonesia Foundation also shows that nicotine content is still discovered in buildings that ban smoking in their area, such as schools, which have shown 32 percent traces of nicotine in the surroundings and hospitals, which have shown 68 percent traces of nicotine.

Another survey shows that 93 percent of 747 respondents in five municipalities in Jakarta support the 100 percent smoke-free policy to be implemented in all buildings in Jakarta, including public places and working areas.

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