Indonesian toddler, Ardi Rizal, smokes 40 cigarettes per day. Photo Courtesy New York Daily News
Photographer: courtesy New York Daily News
Copyright 2010 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Posted: 05/27/2010
Sumatra, Indonesia - Still in diapers, an Indonesian toddler smokes forty cigarettes per day. His father admits to giving him his first cigarette when the boy was 18 months old and now throws fits if he isn't allowed to light up.
Video of the toddler, Ardi Rizal, smoking with the ease of an adult that has smoked for years is going viral on the web. The New York Daily News reports the overweight child isn't active like other toddlers but has to push himself around with a toy truck.
Officials in Sumatra have shown concern, offering to buy the family a car if the boy quits.
"He's totally addicted," says the boy's 26-year-old mother Diana. "If he doesn't get cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and kicks and batters his head against the wall. He tells me he feels dizzy and sick."
The toddler's 30-year-old father Mohammed seems unconcerned. "He looks pretty healthy to me, I don't see a problem."
Copyright 2010 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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