Dubai: While the consumption of tobacco has gone up nominally, there has been a drop in smokers both in the adult and 13-55 years category in the UAE, according to Dr Wedad Al Maidour, head of the National Tobacco Control Programme at the Ministry of Health.
She was addressing a workshop held to review the challenges of enforcing Federal Law 15 that advocates a ban on smoking in public places. “We are trying to see how the implementing authorities such as the Roads and Transport Authority, the economic department, the Dubai Health Authority and the municipalities of both Abu Dhabi and Dubai are enforcing the law and what issues they are facing in effectively practising it,” she said.
According to a 2010 report of the World Health Survey, nearly 26 per cent of the UAE adult male population and 1.7 per cent of the adult female population smoke. In the 13-15 age category 16 per cent are smokers in the UAE, according to results of a global tobacco survey.
Dr Wedad added that her department was committed towards better reinforcement of the anti-smoking message in all the emirates and better implementation of anti-smoking laws and bylaws. “Smoking habits are declining. It is our goal to reduce smoking in adults by 60 per cent by 2021. As far as smoking in the 13-15 age group is concerned, we have come down from 20 per cent smokers in 2002 to 16 per cent in 2013 and that is encouraging. Minors are inspired by film and television footage showing icons smoking and that has to change,” she said.
She said that those empowered to enforce the laws were working closely at all levels. “We are committed to clamping down on this and are working with school authorities to educate young children about the harms of smoking. We have anti-smoking clinics where we conduct group therapies for adult smokers. We are talking to the economic department to curb sales of cigarettes at cash tills of supermarkets and are working on the change in packaging and labelling of cigarette packets. We also are working with sheesha café owners to regulate the use of sheesha and are working with the tourism departments to send out the message to tourists that the UAE is a smoke-free country.”
