Kelly Clarkson is under fire and lighting up a smoking debate among anti-tobacco advocates after recruiting a cigarette manufacturer to sponsor her upcoming tour stop in Indonesia — the world’s fourth most populated nation. The tobacco firm is sponsoring the “Since U Been Gone” hitmaker’s April 29 concert in Jakarta – and they’ve splashed their L.A. Lights brand logo all over promotional posters advertising the show.
Critics argue that Clarkson’s deal with L.A. Lights, the country’s most popular brand of cigarettes, will only further advocate and promote smoking in Indonesia — which seems to be the last place on Earth where the dangerous addiction needs to be encouraged.
Although smoking has declined in many Western countries, it has risen in Indonesia, according to The Associated Press. Approximately 63 percent of all men in the nation smoke and one-third of the overall population smokes, an increase of 26 percent since 1995. Smoking-related illnesses kill at least 200,000 Indonesians each year.
“Indonesia is a big concern, a big epidemic, a big population, and very little control,” said Dr. Prabhat Jha, a tobacco control expert at the University of Toronto’s Center for Global Health Research. “They have a chaotic taxation and regulatory structure. They have made the mistake of letting the Marlboro Man into the country.”
Clarkson’s controversy comes two years after Alicia Keys objected to a similar tobacco-fuelled sponsorship deal in Indonesia. A. Keys demanded that the cigarette logos be removed from all ads promoting her Jakarta concert, and US-based anti-smoking groups want Kelly to do the same.
Matt Myers, President of the Tobacco-Free Kids Campaign, says:
“If Kelly Clarkson goes ahead with the concert, she is by choice being a spokesman for the tobacco industry and helping them to market to children. She has the power now to turn this situation around and to send a clear message to Indonesian young people and, frankly, to the young people of the world.”