Pictured above is little Ardi Rizal, a two-year-old Indonesian lad with an indomitable fondness for cigarettes. His cravings are so intense that he’ll bust into a full-fledged tantrum if not provided with at least 40 cigarettes of the same brand per day. Keep in mind that a typical pack hosts only 21 cigarettes, and his habit costs £3.78 a day, which is equivalent to almost 6% of Indonesia’s monthly minimum wage.
Ardi first took a drag when his father Mohammed offered him cigarette one-and-a-half years ago. He has since transformed into an overweight, 56-pound toddler so out of shape that he can barely walk. The Metro reports that Ardi “trundles round on a toy truck blowing smoke as he is too unfit to run with the other children.”
Local officials have tried to bribe the family into forcing Ardi to quit by offering them a car, but his father insists that there’s nothing wrong: “He looks pretty healthy to me. I don’t see the problem.”
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annnnd… how is this not child abuse?
“Ardi first took a drag when his father Mohammed offered him cigarette one-and-a-half years ago.”
Offered. Does it seem like he had much of a choice at 6 months old? This is why some people should not be allowed to have kids.
But hey, look on the bright side. At least it wasn’t something like her0in, right?
o.O’
STUPID FATHER. THEY SHOULDNT BRIBE THEM, JUST TAKE THE CHILD BY FORCE. THEY HAVE A REASON TO TAKE THE CHILD ANYWAY, AND I MEAN, WTF, BRIBERY?!?! DUMB. VERY VERY DUMB. STUPID INDONESIANS.
Itaintrite: I think the kid isn’t exactly 24 months, so I suppose the father offered him the cigarette when the kid was about a year old, rather than shoving one into the face of a 6-month-old baby.
Which is still stupid, but then again, these are probably uneducated people who don’t know the things we know about the hazards of smoking. To them, it’s just funny when a kid does an ‘adult thing’. They probably still have the idea that smoking and being overweight are signs of wealth, and that there’s nothing wrong with that.
joe: Before you call an entire nation stupid, you may want to figure out the location of your capslock button. Capital letters go at the beginning of a sentence and at the beginning of proper names, not in your entire post. Just a heads up.
Look for the video for this… It is the ugliest thing you will have seen in a long time.
Omg I cannot believe this, why would they do that ? @Liane I would say this is child abuse
Holy crepe! I’m speechless. Do Indonesia have social services? Is his farther a complete brainless git? How could you allow your child to do that, a bloody toddler no less!
Joe: I do not see how the actions of one person or small group of people can lead you to condemn an entire nation as ‘stupid’.
Poorly informed, maybe. In the case of these specific people.
It seems like good ole’ xenophobia to me.
The phrase ‘stupid Indonesians’ is not really acceptable, is it?
He is one effing stupid man, a real ‘see you en tee’, but his countrymen and women are mostly very lovely. Just like the rest of us.
BTW, I agree that the child should be removed from the parent.
Proof that some people should just not be allowed to procreate.
@joe: stupid is someone who’s ought to know better – who does know better. You went and checked if it’s stupidity that’s the problem here, yes?
I always try to look on the bright when I see stories like this. Darwinian natural selection weeding out the bad genes from the pool. You could argue that the child is an innocent, but hey, doesn’t he have some of his moronic father’s genes too?
isnt this how robert downey’s father ruined his son’s life?
Poor wee boy. What a shame.
Jesus ok that’s quite bad uhhh. yeah. probably sick weird people. or just exentric
This is just life; sad, but life. It’s examples like this that will become education to others. There just simply aren’t the resources in the world to save everyone.
If it were in the UK I’d be angry because of the cost of resolving this issue to social and health services.
Something wrong here because the original report, published in The Sun said the father gave the toddler his first cig at 18 months old, not 18 months ago.
Still doesn’t make it right but in the interests of clarity……
Some get born addicted (normally not to nicotin though), others get alcohol (nice quiet kids) .. This one I hadn’t heard about before. It seems so surreal .. as if it is not true. It’s hard to believe that a child itself wishes to smoke. The child does look old I have to say. Smoking itself does not do that, so the child himself must already have been suffering from something on the inside. Too bad it can’t explain properly .. can’t speak good enough. Apart from the fact that its parents gave him his first smoke and allow him to smoke (as it’s wild outbursts are a bit too hard on their own pathetic selfcentered selfes I guess). And the overweight .. def. not caused by the smoking itself.
Why is the vid taken from the website I wonder.
I hope this family gets help, if it’s true.
I have to add that I put tobacco in my father’s pipe and such when my parents weren’t there when I was not even 1 yet. So the interest is there .. although it might not be the smoking itself .. but the doing something you found quite interesting and nice to watch from someone else. Boys perhaps start out wanting to be like their father. Also, tons of parents find it funny to give their child a nip out of a beer can ..
those crazy asians.
Nature and nuture. An official body should explain to the family why their behavour is unacceptable and give them a chance to rectify the problem, then perhaps take the child elsewhere, though not to Madge and co. And why not let the child have tantrems, isn’t that what they do anyway?
It isn’t a “habit”, it’s a drug addiction. And, yes, it’s child abuse. As is smoking near children, something I see almost every day. And it must stop.
smoking is a big pile of crap. i have quit for 4 years now and never looked back
. . . it is a hoax.
Stop making money from child abuse. Confiscate the child, force him into cold turkey while he’s being sent to better parents. Tantrums? So what, it’s the addiction, most adult quitters will go through the same phase. It will pass! Cut him off!
I think this is a hoax of sorts, but if it was true I hope the kid doesn’t stop smoking. No one likes a quitter.