Saudis are Smokers, Tobacco Control

More than a fifth of Saudi Arabia’s population are smokers, spending around SR11 billion (Dh10.8 billion) on cigarettes a year, newspapers said on Thursday. Most of the estimated six million smokers in the largest Arab economy and world’s top oil exporter are aged between 17 and 40 years, the papers said, quoting well known psychologist Ali Zaeri as saying in a study. The largest number of smokers in the Gulf Kingdom is based in the western Red Sea port of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second largest city after the capital Riyadh, he said. Newspapers also quoted a health ministry report as saying the smokers include nearly 600,000 women and 772,000 teen agers. Saudi Arabia, which controls nearly a fifth of the world’s proven oil resources, has a population of about 28 million, the sixth largest in the Arab world after Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan and Morocco.