Saudi Anti-Smoking Drive Picks Up Speed With Arrival of Ramadan
“The holy month provides an ideal opportunity to give up smoking.  If smokers can be without tobacco during the day, why can’t they be without it during the night as well?"
Mohammed Rasooldeen, 27 September 2006

“Ramadan Without Tobacco” — an exhibition sponsored by the Ministry of Health opened in Riyadh late Monday as part of a national campaign against smoking.

While inaugurating the show at the Riyadh Al-Amal Hospital here, Dr. Abdullah Al-Bideihi, general supervisor of the Anti-Smoking Unit at the Ministry of Health, said the ministry had launched a countrywide campaign during the holy month to reduce the number of smokers in the Kingdom.

Dr. Bideihi opened a similar display at an improvised tent adjacent to a mosque in Olaya Street on Saturday.

“The holy month provides an ideal opportunity to give up smoking which has killed some 28.9 million people in the world due to tobacco-related diseases,” said Dr. Bideihi.

He added that the ministry was determined to carry out the campaign effectively through its 35 anti-smoking clinics spread throughout the Kingdom. The clinics are open daily from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. during the month of Ramadan. There are eight such clinics in Riyadh and two of them are exclusively for women. The ministry has also printed nearly half a million pamphlets urging smokers to give up their habit.

“If smokers can be without tobacco during the day, why can’t they be without it during the night as well? This is the main emphasis of our campaign,” the health specialist said.

He advised smokers to use scientific methods to quit smoking without rejecting positive effects from herbal treatment.

“We are trying to reach smokers through mosques, anti-smoking clinics, public places, parks and malls, hospitals and schools,” said the doctor.

Last year, the Kingdom imported 45,000 tons of tobacco for local consumption at a value of SR 1.6 billion. A slice of the imports are taken by expatriate workers when they go for vacation since cigarettes are more expensive in their home countries than in the Kingdom.

More than 600,000 students in the Kingdom under the age of 22 are smokers.

Dr. Bideihi pointed out that smoking among students is mostly due to peer pressure in which they follow their friends. The other reasons for teenage smoking are children trying to emulate fathers, attempting to show their importance by smoking and also due to adolescent frustration as a result of parental negligence.

Last year, at the end of Ramadan, the Kingdom launched an intensive anti-smoking campaign urging the worshippers to join hands for a smoke-free Makkah.

The ministry deployed around 60 young people who took up positions at the Grand Mosque in Makkah to raise awareness of the health risks of tobacco.

According to a Health Ministry survey, 62 percent of Saudi employees began smoking between the ages of 10 and 20; 27 percent between the ages of 20 and 30 and nine percent before the age of 10.

The Kingdom signed the anti-tobacco agreement in May 2005. Saudi Arabia ranks fourth in the world in tobacco imports and consumption. More than 15 billion cigarettes, worth $168 million, are being smoked by Saudis every year, according to figures of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)’s Health Ministers Council.