MADINAH, 8 January 2006 — Smokers in Madinah are sick and tired of the ban on the sale of cigarettes, not to mention the drives they have to take to feed their addictions.
The smoking ban within the second ring road of the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah has created a black market demand from smokers who want to avoid driving tens of kilometers to the nearest legal vendor. Even women have begun to illegally sell cigarettes from their homes.
Madinah resident Amin Hadda said that the ban of sales of cigarette is wrong.
“Smoking is like drinking cola in the street. Cola is bad for your health and teeth and so is smoking. If something is so bad that it’s banned, then colas should be banned from sales in stores, too,” he said. “I think it’s OK to ban sales of cigarette inside the first ring road in respect to the Holy Mosque, but to ban it in the second ring road and forcing smokers to drive tens of kilometers to buy it is too much.”
Others believe that the decision is good, for the sake of public health. Abu Saleh, resident of Al-Seeh neighborhood, said that smokers should quit the habit instead of complaining about the ban.
“No man in his right mind will smoke — there is a warning on the cigarette pack saying that smoking kills; (smokers) should read it before they take the cigarette out,” he said. “If they do not care about themselves then they should care about others. Many people are suffering from second-hand smoke; they get cancer because of smokers. . . . This city is holy and it should be protected from harmful things like cigarettes.”
The only ones truly benefiting from the ban are black-market vendors. Smokers go to certain people in stores and buy cigarettes from them at marked-up prices.
Um Salem said that the banning decision benefited her financially. Her kids are buying packs of cigarettes in large numbers and she sells them to local people in the neighborhood. She is known as “the smoking lady” because she provides cigarettes for people at a “reasonable” price: SR8 per pack, or two cigarettes for SR1. She said that she does not to sell it to children under the age of 17.
Abdullah Al-Ahmadi, resident of Al-Ahamda neighborhood, said that the ban has made cigarettes into a kind of gateway drug, opening the door for other illegal stuff to be sold to smokers.
If kids and young men are approaching these black market dealers to buy cigarettes, this will open the door to sell other illegal substances such as sleeping pills to them, he said.
