Like many developing countries, Saudi Arabia has been targeted by the tobacco mafia with the aim of delaying and rendering ineffective all efforts to combat smoking. The simple truth is that tobacco generates profits amounting to many billions of dollars every year, and such profits go mainly to the accounts of the multinational companies that control the tobacco trade. Although many countries have their own national tobacco production, it is the multinationals that take the large profits throughout the world. Yet the world is becoming increasingly aware of the health risks that smoking causes. Efforts in many European and American countries to curb the smoking pandemic have yielded good results, with great reductions in tobacco consumption and a significant drop in the percentage of young people who pick up the habit. The multinationals were quick to see the writing on the wall and realize that the efforts of Western governments will be on the increase. Hence, for many years they have been targeting developing countries with the aim of spreading the smoking pandemic everywhere. They have benefited by the absence of effective legislation to curb their activities. Besides, where legislation is in place, tobacco companies are known to try to circumvent them. Their overall aim is to compensate the loss of five million customers smoking kills every year. Thus, they maintain their profit levels for as long as possible, knowing that the younger a person is when he picks up the smoking habit, the more difficult it is for him to quit once he begins to realize that it is adversely affecting his health.
Encouraged by the World Health Organization, many developing countries began to take measures to increase public awareness of the dangers of smoking. Thus, programs were started to publicize the facts, with radio and television shows speaking against smoking. Tobacco advertising on radio and television was banned. In some cases, no billboard advertising was allowed, but often newspapers were left free to carry adverts of tobacco companies, giving the pretext that the revenue from such advertising was absolutely necessary for the survival of the print media. But all such steps fell far short of what was required. Health officials felt that putting a health warning on cigarette packets would encourage people to quit smoking. Therefore, regulations demanded placing such a warning, and sure enough the tobacco companies complied. In some countries, you needed a magnifying lens to discover the position of the warning, let alone read it. If dark red was a color on the packet, the warning was written in light black on the red area.
But is it enough to know that health and tobacco are two opposites and cannot coexist for people to stop smoking? The tobacco companies were always a step ahead of the health authorities. They realized that with the strong addiction tobacco causes, few of their customers would heed the health warning. Tobacco consumption continued on the rise in practically all developing countries. Only the dedication of individuals caring for the welfare of people, at ministries of health and at the World Health Organization, maintained the momentum in the effort to combat tobacco.
An initiative by the World Health Organization sought a religious ruling on tobacco. The Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office, based in Alexandria at the time, submitted data and medical information to Al-Azhar, the famous seat of Islamic scholarship, requesting a fatwa on smoking. Al-Azhar asked 10 of its prominent scholars to give their own individual fatwas, and all returned a ruling of prohibition. Their rulings are published by WHO in a book carrying the title The Islamic Ruling on Smoking.
In Saudi Arabia efforts by the Ministry of Health continued, with greater dedication. Everyone realized that the problem is very difficult to solve, because of the addiction element, and the efforts of the multinational companies. These efforts used the financial power at the disposal of such companies to promote tobacco. It is not easy in our world to issue an order to curb the efforts of these companies, because promotion efforts can easily cross borders, with what is organized in one country being easily monitored in another.
Health authorities realize that combating tobacco smoking requires an integrated and sustained package of measures, with clear preventive and curative goals. Thus, it is necessary to pursue policies that will persuade young people not to try to smoke, while at the same time help smokers to quit. Much depends on fostering people’s will not to smoke. Cooperation with the Ministry of Education ensures that school children receive a few doses of health education, in which the dangers of tobacco smoking are highlighted. At the same time, programs to help smokers to quit are introduced.
In Saudi Arabia, the Ministry of Health took the additional step of establishing specialized clinics throughout the country where smokers are welcome. These clinics offer wide-ranging and thorough information about tobacco, its effects on health, the dangers to which a regular smoker exposes himself and the nature of the addiction tobacco smoking forms. Different methods of help are explained, and the smoker is helped to make an informed choice of the method he thinks will work for him. The point is that quitting the smoking habit is hard and requires a great effort that can only be achieved when a person is determined to succeed. In Jeddah, some clinics offer rewards, such as free membership, for a limited period, in a sport club where the quitting smoker can train. As he does so, he will discover that quitting smoking enables him to improve his physical strength more rapidly. This provides an added incentive to keep up the effort to quit the smoking habit. The clinics work with smokers at both individual and group levels, realizing that while every smoker provides a special case that should be individually treated, people can help each other by sharing an experience of getting rid of a stubborn addiction.
Such efforts make steady progress, but the road ahead is still long. Madinah is providing the lead and its success will, God willing, provide the lead to expand the effort, putting it at the national level, with a plan to make the whole country tobacco-free.
(Concluded)