JEDDAH, 16 April 2005 — A monthlong antismoking campaign will be held in the Makkah region from today to enhance public awareness against the unhealthy habit, which costs Saudi Arabia more than SR600 million annually.
Makkah Governor Prince Abdul Majeed will launch the campaign, titled “Family Without Smoking, Protection from Cancer” and organized by the Iman Charitable Society for the Care of Cancer Patients.
Dr. Muhammad Abdu Yamani, chairman of the society’s board of directors and the higher organizing committee, said the campaign would especially target young Saudis.
“We are holding this campaign out of our strong belief that it will have positive effects in encouraging smokers to quit the habit,” Yamani told the Saudi Press Agency.
The campaign is significant as Saudi men and women burn 15 billion cigarettes annually worth SR633 million, according to a report released by the executive office of the GCC Health Ministers Council. Saudi Arabia is the world’s fourth largest importer of cigarettes, it added.
Fahd Hussein Al-Suleimani, the campaign supervisor, said nearly a million brochures and pamphlets on the harmful effects of smoking would be distributed among the public as well as in boys and girls schools. “We’ll also hold 45 mobile exhibitions and seven clinics to help people quit smoking,” he said.
Dr. Mahmoud Shaheen, head of internal medicine at King Abdul Aziz University and a member of the society’s medical team, said smoking was the cause of 90 percent of lung cancer cases. “By encouraging people to quit smoking we can save thousands from cancer,” he pointed out.
According to the GCC report, the Western Province tops with 26.8 percent of smokers in the Kingdom, followed by the Southern Province 23.3 percent and Northern Province 14.9 percent.
The Eastern Province accounts for 45.5 percent of female smokers. Women in the Central Province rarely smoke; they account for only for 3.2 percent of the total.
