Mahmoud Ahmad I am not blowing smoke. I am just stating facts that reveal what people already know — that Saudi riyals are going up in smoke individually and collectively with smokers and smoking on the rise in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That I am stating this fact emphatically comes from the facts revealed by the recently published statistics on number of smokers in Saudi Arabia by the Ministry of Health, in cooperation with anti-smoking society (Naqa). What it disclosed was alarming. It showed that the number of smokers in Saudi Arabia had soared to nine million by the end of 2010. It also stated that Saudi Arabia is ranked 29th internationally when is comes to the number of smokers. The stats went on to say that the number of Saudi female smokers had touched 1.1 million during the same period and their continued puffing had pushed Saudi Arabia to be ranked fifth among female smokers. The statistics indicated that Saudis are spending SR45 million daily to smoke while the annual expenditure on smoking touched SR16.5 billion. If this is not alarming than I do not know what is? From time to time I hear a lot about government campaigns against smoking that is targeting children at school. I also read about millions of riyals spent on these campaigns to increase awareness against the danger of smoking. Nothing seems to have made an impact, because the facts stare at us through the published statistics. The reach of the campaigns seems to have worked in reverse with the targeted public reaching for the packet to light up, literally, their lives. Instead of the numbers going down, it is going up. Where did we go wrong? The fact that there are 1.1 million female smokers is another disaster that needs an article by itself. Educationalists should examine this dangerous trend and find out why this section is increasing in number rapidly. They as mothers and family linchpins could prove bad example setters to the youth. Their actions could cost the government campaigns dear as it would act in cross-purpose to what the child is seeing at home. This brings me to ask the next question. I sometimes wonder, are schools doing their part in fighting smoking? Are the children really made to face the reality of evils of smoking and possible health hazards it brings with it? The traditional ways of distributing flyers to students or making them watch an awareness video is totally useless. We are giving flyers to students who do not read and even if they do, they do not care or understand. And as for the videos, if they see it than it is out of mind when it is out of sight. The only way to curb smoking is to use a two-pronged attack. Continuing the heavy doses of the possible health ailments that a smoker could suffer through various health drives, the authorities should hit them where it really pinches them — in their pockets. A continual increment in the price of a packet could prove a deterrent. I would also like to ask, what has the Ministry of Commerce done to force shops to stop selling cigarette to minors? I regret to say it, but it has done absolutely poorly is monitoring and implementing this rule. It has happened in front of me several times with shops selling cigarettes to minors as young as 12 years old. When I asked the shopkeeper why is he selling it to minors, he said with impunity that he did not care whom he sold the product as long he did his job, and his job is to sell what he has to people. He even told me that some parents send their children to buy cigarettes, and this provides a tempting avenue for the youngster to try smoking and then form a habit — setting of the vicious circle of smoke twirling around from parents to children and peers. Youths are getting addicted to cigarettes at a young age. We should ask the question why? Why each time the government spends millions of riyals to fight smoking, more of our youth fall victim to it? Sadly it is now common to see a teenager smoking in the street without anyone giving him advise to stop smoking because our society has got used to it. Long gone are the days when, in the past, it was considered a great crime to see someone at that age smoking in the street. And it would have been a greater crime if the adolescent was caught puffing away by a family member, elderly neighbor or teacher. It is about time that we admit that we failed in our duty to protect our children from smoking. And the growing apathy toward it needs to be blown away. And we can take a leaf out of our tradition to think of new measures to fight smoking starting from schools. I believe that any teacher who is smoking should be banned from teaching. It might seem hard, but as charity begins at home hard lessons need to be taught at schools. How would a student accept that smoking is dangerous when he sees his teacher smoking! The campaigns need to be tailor-made for the audience. We should bring experts to our schools to increase awareness about smoking with an audio-video demonstration to our students. In addition, heavy doses of stark reality about the health hazards should be imposed on them. The municipality or the Ministry of Commerce should come up with tough laws against shops that sell cigarette to minors. They should impose a fine up to SR100,000 with the warning that the shop would be shuttered for a month if caught selling cigarettes to minors and permanently if the offense is repeated. At the end of the day there should be no mercy shown toward those who poison our children. Students, who are caught smoking, should be given intensive psychological, moral and health evaluation by school and then made to quit smoking. I also do not know why it is so difficult for the government to ban smoking in public places. Smoking is increasing in our society and with it comes all sorts of diseases — not to mention cancer — and death. We should act now, or else the latest statistics could reveal our growing tardiness toward smokers and smoking by putting us as the number one nation when it comes to smoking. – Mahmoud Ahmad can be reached at [email protected]
