Baby News

RevolutionNews.US ~ JAKARTA, Indonesia – A video of smoking toddler is sparking outrage on the web. When the clip of 2-year-old Sumatran Ardi Rizal puffing away surfaced on YouTube Wednesday, it spread to online social media like, well, fire. Popular blog Gawker linked to the smoking baby video, calling him “totally cooler than you.” But user Faldo777’s response was the more typical response: “His parents should be jailed …” In fact, his parents say Rizal throws a tantrum when they refuse to give him a cigarette. His father gave him his first smoke when he was just 18 months old. The smoking toddler was witnessed by a reporter who recently visited his home in the fishing village of Musi Banyuasin, in Indonesia’s South Sumatra province. “I’m not worried about his health, he looks healthy,” shrugged the boy’s father Mohammad Rizal. “He cries and throws tantrums when we don’t let him smoke. He’s addicted.” Rizal isn’t the first smoking youngster caught on tape. In March, a video of a 4-year-old Indonesian boy blowing smoke rings appeared briefly on YouTube, prompting outcries before it was removed from the site. Disturbing trend Ardi’s youth is the extreme of a disturbing trend in Indonesia. Data from the Central Statistics Agency showed 25 percent of Indonesian children ages 3-to-15 have tried cigarettes, with 3.2 percent of those active smokers. The percentage of 5- to 9-year-olds lighting up increased from 0.4 percent in 2001 to 2.8 percent in 2004, the agency reported …