Student Executive Board of Agriculture Faculty (BEM FP) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) organize debate competition regarding cigarette in Indonesia for UMY’s students. The competition aimed at inviting all students of UMY to contribute to establishing free smoking area in the university. “The competition objective is to enhance students’ understanding of the impacts of smoking,” stated Najib Ikhsan, chief of the debate competition. It was conducted on Saturday (19/12) at Room F5.001 and F5.104 by BEM FP of UMY collaborating with Himasepta of UMY, Himagro, and Muhammadiyah Tobacco Control Center (MTCC) of UMY.
Najib informed that the debate competition was joined by 13 teams that each team comprised 3 participants. The participants were required to comprehend the debate motions. “They have to have valid data or facts to support their arguments to convince the adjudicators and the audience,” Najib conveyed.
There were 9 debate motions, and the motion of the first preliminary round was THBT smoking tradition is a tradition to reinforce relationship among people. Acting as Government team was Muhammad Dito, Faisal Bahrun, and Muhammad Ammar. The team defined the smoking tradition refers to a habit from father to son. “Smokers are aware that smoking is not good, but they believe that smoking is a tradition from father to son that can strengthen relationship between smokers and non-smokers. The brotherhood will also appear between tobacco sellers and smokers,” Dito argued.
Acting as the Opposition team was Adinda A. Rasyadham, Ardra Sarim and Rizaldy Nusantara. They disputed the argument of Government team. The opposition team contended that cigarette consists of harmful substances so that smoking can dissociate one another due to the impacts of smoking. “Some of public may afraid of the negative impacts of smoke so that they may stay away from the impacts of smoke. Besides, smoking can cause death which will trigger conflicts between active and passive smokers,” Adra maintained.
Najib expected that the competition can encourage students to state that UMY is a free smoking campus. Students are reminded of Decree (SK) of Rector in 2011 on the prohibition of smoking at UMY. “I wish that the debate competition encourages students to participate to establish UMY free smoking area since smoking bring more harm than good,” Najib hoped.
