Smoking Java Jazz

This March, Joss Stone and other internationally-known performers will once again take the stage in Jakarta, Indonesia, at Java Jazz, one of the largest jazz festivals in the world.

The festival is sponsored by Indonesian tobacco company, Djarum, so the performers will be helping the company's promote its deadly products.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has contacted many of the performers scheduled to appear at this year's Java Jazz and asked them to renounce the tobacco sponsorship.

Tobacco-sponsored concerts are prohibited in the U.S. and many nations around the world for a very good reason – they are designed to market a deadly product to impressionable kids. By allowing their music and images to be used to sell tobacco, these artists are one of the reasons why Indonesia has one of the highest smoking rates in the world.

An estimated 78 percent of current smokers in Indonesia start before the age of 19. Tobacco use remains the number one cause of preventable death in the world, killing more than 200,000 people each year in Indonesia alone.