MAKKAH, 16 June 2007 — A man was arrested in a sting operation in the holy city for selling homemade smokeless tobacco (shamma) in an animal market in Al-Asaleya district.
Police here said they received tips about an African national known to be a vendor of smokeless tobacco who has boasted that he could deliver bulk quantities. An undercover police officer tested this claim by asking the man for 3,000 packages of shamma, the dried powdered tobacco snuff that is inhaled in the nose for the nicotine that gets absorbed into the bloodstream through the nasal membranes.
The man was arrested when he was followed to his stash of 12,000 bags of shamma. Authorities believe the clandestine shamma-making operation involved cutting the snuff with a dangerous substance in order to sell more of the product.
Although technically not a controlled substance, smokeless tobacco is illegal to produce and sell on the street. Markets in Saudi Arabia sell the raw material, dried tobacco leaves, which are bought by street dealers and used to make shamma and tumbak (smokeless tobacco that is placed on the gums). Both substances are available in many places, especially markets and bagalas (corner shops).
A report by Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH&RC) has directly linked an increased likelihood of oral cancer for shamma users.
“Previous investigators in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have reported a relationship between their patients with oral cancer and a history of using shamma,” the report said. The study logged oral cancer tumors found in 26,510 shamma users in Saudi Arabia between 1976 and 1995. Thirty-five percent of these cases were found in the southern Jizan province where smokeless tobacco is most popular.
Researchers worldwide have shown that although smokeless tobacco doesn’t cause lung disease, it greatly increases the chance of oral cancers and — as with any nicotine-containing substance — has the same ill effect on the heart as cigarettes.
