Two year old smoker cuts down to 15 a day

We previously brought you the story of 2 year old Ardi Rizal who was reported to have a 40 cigarette a day habit despite the fact he is yet to walk. The horrifying discovery came after the Sun newspaper covered his plight last month.

He was shown to be unable to interact with other children from his Indonesian village because he was simply too unfit to keep up with them. Already said to suffer with violent nicotine withdrawals, he displays extreme reactions when refused a cigarette.

Cutting down

Although it’s quite frankly still a bizarre a story, health experts in his native Indonesia claim that Ardi’s parents are successfully cutting his habit down to 15 a day with the help of what they refer to as ‘play therapy’. The idea behind it is to reinforce the fact that playing with toys like other baby boys is preferable to smoking cigarettes.

The entire concept is based on the idea that encouraging him to have more fun when playing will not only keep him active and help him to lose weight, but also take his mind off his cravings. It is currently working. Doctors have however warned that he may lose his voice after quitting smoking because he is partial to singing.

”The boy likes singing songs so we tell him that if he continues smoking, he won’t be able to be a singer one day, and it works,” said Seto Mulyadi, the Chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection who attributes the rise in teen and child smokers with cigarette advertising.

Smoking is a leading cause of preventable deaths across the World and anybody looking to quit has a variety of smoking cessation aids to hand.