News this month that an 8-year-old boy was addicted to cigarettes has raised concerns about the smoking epidemic among Indonesian youths.

The country, home to 237 million people, ranks third in the world for the number of smokers after China and India, according to the World Health Organization.

Thirty-four percent of Indonesian adults smoke with many starting the nicotine habit at an early age, according to a 2010 Health Ministry report.

"Cigarette addiction among youths has reached an alarming level and requires urgent government action," said Arist Merdeka Sirait, chairman of the National Child Protection Commission.

"Parents and children must not be left alone in facing the aggressiveness of the tobacco industry," he said.

Local media reported that 8-year-old Ilham Hadi from West Java province started smoking four years ago and now smokes two packets of cigarettes a day.

"He doesn't want to go to school," the boy's father, Umar, told local television. "He spends his time smoking and playing every day."

Ilham is not the youngest Indonesian known to be a chain smoker.

In 2010, a video showing a 2-year-old, Aldi Rizal, smoking a cigarette drew international attention after it hit the internet. The boy, who was said to smoke 40 cigarettes a day, was sent to rehabilitation and has since kicked the habit.

The Health Ministry report said 29 per cent of Indonesians aged 10 and above smoke an average 12 cigarettes a day.

Ten percent of them started smoking between 10 and 14 years of age while 0.1 percent started as young as 5, the report said.

The government is drafting a decree that would restrict cigarette advertisements and sponsorships, but tobacco farmers and industry players have opposed the move.

Indonesia allows cigarette advertising on television, billboards and in print media even though images of cigarette packs and people smoking are banned in the advertisements. Concerts and sporting events are regularly sponsored by cigarette companies.

Social Affairs Minister Agung Laksono has sought to allay fears that a stricter tobacco regulation could cause many people to lose jobs.

"The decree won't ban people from growing tobacco or smoking but seeks to regulate it to prevent harm to those who don't smoke, including children," he said.

According to an official estimate, smoking kills about 400,000 Indonesians every year.

Data released by the National Commission on Tobacco Control showed 70 per cent of the country's smokers come from low-income families and spending on cigarettes came second on a list of highest household expenditures after food.

A pack of 10 cigarettes costs as little as 1 dollar, but almost half of Indonesia people live on less than 2 dollars a day.

Efforts to curb smoking have been made difficult by a powerful tobacco lobby, said Fuad Baradja, chairman of the Indonesian Smoking Control Foundation.

Indonesia is neither a party nor signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The anti-smoking framework has been signed by 168 of 174 countries that are parties to it.

"The government prefers to listen to the tobacco industry lobby," he said. "They believe that if Indonesia imposes strong tobacco control policies, the cigarette industry will die and people will lose jobs."

Baradja asked whether it was realistic to believe millions of Indonesian smokers would suddenly quit if anti-smoking legislation were enacted.

"We just want to protect the young generation from the dangers of smoking," he said.

Last month, a book defending the local cigarette industry was released.

The book, titled Killing Indonesia: The Global Conspiracy to Destroy Clove Cigarettes, alleged that anti-smoking campaigns are a foreign plot to kill kretek, distinctive local cigarettes made with a blend of tobacco, cloves and other flavours.

The book was endorsed by celebrities, professors, researchers and journalists.

"Indonesia's distinctive cigarette industry, which has survived for more than a century, is being attacked under the pretext of global health," the book said.

"Small factories have closed down while at the same time drugs for smoking cessation produced by multinational companies are flooding the country," it said.

Baradja dismissed the information as a conspiracy theory.

"I don't believe in whatever they say," he said. "I believe in a large body of research conducted by global scientists that shows that smoking is harmful to health."