BY RAYNALD C RIVERA
DOHA: Qatar’s tobacco control law must be strictly implemented, with the high prevalence of smoking in the country, a health expert told a symposium yesterday.
Dr Ahmad Al Mulla, Consultant and Chief of the Smoking Cessation Clinic at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), said that the 2002 Tobacco Control Law “prohibiting smoking in public places is not fully enforced.”
Dr Al Mulla was addressing a symposium yesterday at HMC as part of Qatar’s observance of World No Tobacco Day which is being celebrated around the world today.
According to local studies 37 percent of the population are smokers, most of whom are between 20 and 35 years old.
“Among school students, 10.7 percent of boys and 2.8 percent of girls smoke and they start smoking at age 12,” he said, adding five percent of physicians are smokers.
Regular visits to schools are being done as part of anti-smoking campaign, yet there is more work to be done, he added.
Stressing the dangers of tobacco, he said all tobacco products including cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco and shisha contain nicotine.
Contrary to popular belief that shisha does not pose much health risk than cigarette smoking, he said while one cigarette contains 223mg of tar and 1.74mg of nicotine, shisha has 802mg of tar and 2.96mg nicotine, and that 40 chemicals found in cigarette are carcinogenic.
“Five million people die yearly around the world due to smoking and those who die from smoking is more than those who die from Aids, car accidents, use of drugs and suicides together and according to World Health Organisation, this will increase to 10 million by 2022,” he said.
HMC’s Smoking Cessation Clinic, which opened in 1999 and whose role is both on the preventive and curative, receives more than 1,000 new patients every year, he said.
Dr Hajar A H Albinali, of HMC’s Heart Hospital, traced his decades-long experience in the fight against smoking and Qatar’s anti-smoking initiatives which gave birth to the Tobacco Control Law No 20 in 2002. He also discussed the correlation between smoking and cardiovascular diseases.
The symposium was a highlight of a number of activities organised by the clinic in partnership with WHO to observe World No Tobacco Day with the theme ‘Ban Tobacco Advertising, Promotion and Sponsorship’.
Highlighting the potent role of advertisements in the promotion of smoking especially among the young, Dr Abdallah Al Bedah of Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia, emphasised a total ban in advertising may help reduce smoking by six to seven percent.
Speakers at the symposium include experts from HMC, Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar, Qatar University, Al Aween Center in Doha and Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health.
The Peninsula
