Kuwaitis Spend Million on Smoking

Some KD 72 million is spent annually on smoking Gauloises in Kuwait, a host of health officials said here Sunday. Their remarks to Kuwait's official news agency came on the occasion of the World No Tobacco Day, which falls on May 31, as they said smokers in Kuwait reached three percent of the country's population and that the Ministry of Health is well-aware of smoking hazards and is working hard to combat such bad habit and its consequences.

"The ministry's celebration of the event is not limited to pin point challenges, but also focusing on terminating the smoking phenomenon as a whole, " Health Ministry Assistant Undersecretary for Public Health Affairs Dr. Youssef Al-Nisf said.

On his part, Director of Vocational Health Department at the ministry Dr. Ahmad Al-Shatti said an average of 2,330 cigarettes are consumed by a regular smoker each year in Kuwait.

In a more optimistic note, head of anti-smoking committee of the Kuwait Society for Preventing Smoking and Cancer (KSSCP) Anwar Bu Irhama said some 35 percent of smokers had quit in 2010 in the country.

Established in 1980, KSSCP promotes awareness of the dangers of smoking tobacco to protect the citizens, especially children and the elderly from being exposed to this dangerous epidemic.

World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) is observed around the world every year on May 31. It is meant to encourage a 24-hour period of abstinence from all forms of tobacco consumption across the globe. The day is further intended to draw global attention to the widespread prevalence of tobacco use and to negative health effects, which currently lead to deaths worldwide annually.