He's only two and already smoking 40 cigarettes a day.

Reports of the Indonesian toddler's nicotine addiction has made headlines worldwide recently.

The boy, identified as Rap, was said to have picked up the dangerous habit after picking up cigarette butts off the street.

When denied cigarettes, he threw tantrums until his parents eventually gave in.

He's been puffing for about a month and a half now, local media reported.

"My child is used to smoking while drinking coffee and eating cake," said his mum. "If I don't give him a cigarette, my child goes berserk."

And he needs to have a cigarette before he can fall asleep, going through about two packets a day, she added.

Surprisingly, the chain-smoking child's father is a casual smoker who only lights up at work.

The boy's smoking days will soon be over as his parents said that they are going to send him to rehabilitation.

Hopefully, he will be able to kick the habit successfully like Aldi Rizal, a young boy from South Sumatra who shocked the world in 2010 when a video went viral of the barely two-year-old smoking, just like Rap.

With over 60 million smokers, Indonesia has one of the world's biggest smoking population, and seeing an alarming increase in the number of children who smoke, the health ministry noted.

And the problem is exacerbated by the low cost of cigarettes in the country, which allows even kids from poor families to buy them, anti-tobacco activists said.

Child smoking is especially worrying as a study conducted by the University of Indonesia found that smoking stunts children's physical and intellectual development, reported The Jakarta Post.

minlee@sph.com.sg

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