31 May 2006
BEIRUT: In order to promote the International Day to Fight Smoking, various organizations have spoken out against the terrible habit and urged the government to do more to reduce the number of smokers in Lebanon.
Consumers Lebanon stressed the need to implement a clear anti-tobacco strategy explaining to citizens the dangers of smoking. The association estimated 50 percent of Lebanese people are addicted to tobacco.
Last year Lebanon signed the International Convention on Tobacco Control. However, Parliament has yet to issue a law against smoking in public places or limiting advertisements.
Beirut has become the paradise of tobacco companies, with giant billboards along its main roads, in newspapers and on television. Lebanon is one of the few countries in the Middle East that allows cigarette advertising. Perhaps not coincidentally, it also has the region's highest percentage of smokers.
The American University of Beirut was also keen to promote the day and, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, organized a roundtable discussion Tuesday entitled "Tobacco Policy in Lebanon: Health Versus Economic Priorities."
The panelists were MP Atef Majdalani, chair of the Parliamentary Health Committee, George Saade, from WHO Lebanon, Vito Tanzi, from AUB's Faculty of Health Sciences and Mohammad Mantash, from the Islamic Health Society.
The panelists presented facts showing an increase in the number of smokers, especially in developing countries. Saade said that of the present 1.1 billion smokers (a figure which is set to rise to 1.6 billion by 2025), 80 percent live in low and middle-income countries.
Saade added that although the number of annual deaths from smoking presently stands at 2 million in both, by 2030 the approximate number will have increased slightly in developed countries to 3 million and 7 million in developing countries.
Tanzi said smoking is the second highest cause of death in developing countries.
"Each cigarette takes five and a half minutes off somebody's life," he added. "Eighty thousand to one hundred thousand people start every day. Five hundred million to 1 billion US dollars are spent annually on cigarettes alone in Lebanon that's not counting the amount spent on cigars or water-pipes."
Putting that last fact into perspective, Tanzi said: "If we were to take an example of even a moderate smoker who smokes one pack a day, if he was to instead every day put his money into a bank where it would earn interest, at the end of one year he would have an astonishing $1,500 in his account."
All of the panelists agreed that the government needs to act now and prevent people from taking up the habit, protect nonsmokers from the dangers of passive smoking and pro-vide adults with information.
Possible ways presented of helping the country butt out included: raising taxes on cigarettes, banning cigarette advertising and promotion, introducing warning labels and anti-smoking advertisements, promoting nicotine replacement therapy and enforcing an outright ban on smoking in public places.
While the latter would undoubtedly be highly unpopular in Lebanon, it is perhaps a more realistic way of reducing the number of deaths from smoking in a country where 46 percent of junior and high-school students smoke.
