Cover-Ups

Small advertising booths display packs of A Mild Limited Edition cigarettes at 7-Eleven outlets around Jakarta. These days, Sampoerna, the A Mild manufacturer, offers them in a little tin rather than the usual cardboard box. The tin is plain, free of pictures of oral cancer, blackened lungs or that ubiquitous shirtless man puffing smoke before a pair of floating skulls. "Many customers are looking for the cigarettes in the tin, but we are out of stock," Herdiansyah, an employee at a 7-Eleven outlet in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, said last week.

As far as Herdiansyah could recall, his 7-Eleven had begun selling the limited edition A Milds one week before the Health Ministry law came out, that required cigarette packs to brandish graphic health warnings, which took effect on June 24. The 7-Eleven outlet ran out of supply a month ago. Since then there has been no new stock. "Usually we order every three days. Each order is for 100 packs," he said.

August 19, 2014