[alkonaut]

What's going on in Indonesia? Men are increasingly smoking like chimneys, while the rest of the world is more or less on the same downward trend.

It only being men also suggests it isn't a suddent economic change like lifting tobacco taxes. Some cultural change suddenly made it cool for only men to smoke (again).

Is Mad Men running on every channel?

[rmm]

I work in Indonesia a lot and that data makes sense.

Every man I know smokes. That's not an exaggeration. It's ridiculously cheap, and with incredibly low income for most of the population, its the only vice that's allowed for most people.

A couple of guys on an island in the middle of nowhere once said it helps with the mosquito's (they also keep large fires lit for the same reason) but not sure if anyone else thinks that.

[Scarblac]

And none of the women?

Do they all smoke kretek cigarettes?

[ionised]

When advertising cigarettes became illegal in many western nations, tobacco companies shifted their attentions to developing markets like Indonesia.

Smoking is a big and growing business over there.