2-YEAR-OLD BOY SMOKES 40 CIGARETTES A DAY

INDONESIAN TODDLER ADDICTED TO
SMOKING CIGARETTES, 2 PACKS A DAY

TimesNewsline.com - It is sad but true that an Indonesia toddler boy is addicted to cigarettes and smokes 40 cigarettes a day. The kid, named Ardi Rizal, is just a two-year-old boy, but is already engaged in smoking habit. A disturbing video featuring the boy puffing casually on a cigarette is causing a firestorm online. Rizal, who lives in a fishing village Musi Banyuasin, Indonesia, was given his first cigarette when he was 18 months by his 30-year-old father, Mohammed. Now the toddler smoker has developed a disturbing two-pack-a-day habit, which is actually equivalent to 40 cigarettes a day. Rizal, who weighs more than 25 kilograms, smokes a particular brand and his habit costs his parents more than US$5 a day. The overweight kid finds it almost impossible to run with other kids and uses a toy truck to get around, according to New York Daily News. "He's totally addicted. If he doesn't get cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and batters his head against the wall. He tells me he feels dizzy and sick," said Rizal’s 26-year-old mother Diana. Shockingly his father, a fishmonger, seemed unconcerned with his kid’s disturbing habit. "He cries and throws tantrums when we don't let him smoke. He's addicted," said Mohammed.

In the video making the rounds online, Rizal puffs away. The footage posted by Britain's Sun newspaper on its website shows the kid reclining with a cigarette in his mouth. He blows smoke rings, and then draws back deeply on the cigarette; he doesn’t even cough. At one point the kid is even shown turning the cigarette around like he is going to stick the burning tip on his tongue. Seeing their child smoke like a pro may be not worrisome for Rizal’s parents today, but they seemingly are blinded and unalarmed of what this means to his health. This is completely insane for parents to let their kid do this crazy thing. Their child’s lighting up habit is going to be something they will be regretting someday.


Sadly, the attachment to smoking exhibited by this child, reminds us that at death, a person always thinks of that subject matter in which he has been engrossed during his life; and if it is any material attachment or a vice, he can not easily get rid of such material bondage and wants to continue indulging his senses and enjoying it through the new body.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

At the time of death a materialist thinks of his wife and children. He is absorbed in thinking of how they will live and who will take care of them after he leaves. ... Therefore by practicing the mystic yoga system one must become detached from bodily relationships. ... The secret of success in practicing yoga is to become free from bodily attachments. Śrīla Narottama dāsa Thākura says, deha-smriti nāhi yāra, samsāra-bandhana kāhāń tāra: one whose practice has freed him from the anxieties of bodily needs is no longer in conditional life. Such a person is freed from conditional bondage. A person in Krishna consciousness must fully discharge his devotional duties without material attachment. Then his liberation is guaranteed.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“The Śrīmad Bhāgavatam”
Purport in Canto 5 - Chapter 19 - Verse 14.