A chain-smoking Indonesian toddler has cut back to 15 cigarettes a day thanks to “therapy focused on playing”, a child welfare official said.
Two-year-old Ardi Rizal shocked the world when a video of him smoking a cigarette appeared on the Internet last month and drew attention to Indonesia’s failure to regulate the tobacco industry.
Six months after his father gave him his first cigarette, the overweight boy from Sumatra island was smoking 40 a day and threw violent tantrums if his addiction was not satisfied.
Child welfare officials called in to try to wean the toddler off cigarettes said that when they played with him he did not smoke as much.
“The boy has been able to reduce his cigarette intake significantly, very quickly, after the treatment,” National Commission for Child Protection chairman Seto Mulyadi said.