Smoking Tobacco in UAE - Term Paper Example

Insert Smoking Tobacco in UAE On 31st of May 2009, the World Health Organization on Tobacco day, and the Dubai Health Authority started an extensive education campaign against tobacco. The initiative by the title Tobacco Free Dubai together for a society Free Smoking has five phases. The initiatives are: to offer training to DHA physicians to offer tobacco cessation counselling, aiming to give schools cessation education; leveraging malls and establishing relations with companies to pass the anti-tobacco message; providing women with information on health complication resulting from smoking; and lastly, looking back at the campaign achievement to outline plans for state anti-smoking movement (World Health Organization, 79). Prevalence of Tobacco Use Tobacco use is common in the United Arab Emirates. Based on published information from 2005, more than 14 percent of the adult population in the UAE uses tobacco. Most of the smokers are males. Mostly, smoking is common among young adults. About 25 percent of researched students were reported to have tried tobacco, prior to the age of 10 (Harrison et al. 87). Rolling a cigarette in the UAE is not popular and it is mostly experts who are said to roll cigarettes. Indeed, the nation has a long history of pipe smoking. Two types of pipes are popular in United Arab Emirates- the small and the big pipe known as medwakh and shisha, respectively. The latter is not commonly used at home but is instead used at cafes and restaurants for recreation. Just lately, consumers have been in a position to order shisha to use at home, even though this has not been the traditional manner of using it. Smoking shisha has been popular and people do not view it as smoking, the reason why it is acceptable socially even for women to use it whereas smoking cigarettes is taken as not right for women (Gerhard 119). Based on a study carried out in 2005 of use of tobacco among university students in UAE, 9.4 percent of the students smoked cigarettes and 5.6 percent used a waterpipe. Even if women made up 8.9 percent of cigarette smokers, they comprised 26.2 of those who smoked waterpipe. The key players for smoking tobacco have been Kamber Jaffer with 23 percent followed by AFCO and Royal Theodorus with 28 and 11 percent respectively. Cost of Use of Tobacco In year 2000, the United Arab Emirates imported 21, 900 million cigarettes. Then the price of a pack containing 20 cigarettes was 1.43 US dollars for the local brands and 1.91 US dollars for foreign brands. Even though the government imposes an import duty of 100 percent on cigarettes, they are not traditionally subjects of sales tax (Jayakumary et al. 1547). Premium-valued cigarettes represent most of the volume of cigarette sales in the state and cigars are increasing faster than the lower quality cigarillos in the country. The competition is not on the price but the quality of the product every operator works to make his or her products to stand out and have a value equal to the price. Quality came about because of growing demand of luxurious goods (Zain 18). Specialists on tobacco led the way in tobacco distribution in cigars, cigarettes plus smoking tobacco. These distributors have a broader offer plus stocks of all brands. In addition, consumers can get information and advice on the latest product developments, mostly on cigars and premium products from the well-informed retailers. Supermarkets have a vital share of the volume of tobacco sales and this path’s share augmented in the past years. New increasingly hectic way of living has encouraged the growth of this path, as customers prefer to buy all their stuff including tobacco products from one channel for convenience (Jayakumary et al. 1547). The main players in all tobacco categories in UAE are the foreign multinational companies. British American is ranked at the top in terms of volume in three tobacco categories of cigars, cigarette and smoking tobacco. Another key player is Imperial tobacco, which ranks top in terms of volume sales. Before Philip Morris was ranked at the top in cigarettes; however, currently not in any other categories (Al-Houqanet al. 6). Health Information Related To Tobacco Smoking through the waterpipe does not make smoking safe. The smoke that comes via the waterpipe as nicotine and high levels of toxins like carbon dioxide and chemicals that cause cancer are harmful to the smokers and non-smokers (Labib et al. 593). One session of smoking via the waterpipe can expose someone to smoke over longer time than smoking cigarette. A session of smoking for one-hour using waterpipe is the same as smoking more than 100 cigarettes. This produces 70 liters of smoke, which is between 27 and 102 times carbon tar of a cigarette and between 15 to 50times additional carbon monoxide (Maziak 1763, Knishkowy et al. 114). According to the available research, the adverse effects of health on smoking a waterpipe are the same as those linked to cigarette smoking. These are decrease in level of fertility, lung cancer, esophageal cancer, low pulmonary function and oral cancer (Madil et al. 1453). There are more risks that waterpipe smokers’ face that are not faced by cigarette smokers. For example, sharing of the waterpipe exposes the smokers to the risk of infections diseases such as hepatitis, tuberculosis, and herpes. These smokers may also face side effects stemming tobacco additives such as alcohol and psychoactive drugs (Maziak 105). Use of Tobacco at the Workplace To bring the nation in line with the World Health Organization’s structure convention of tobacco control, the United Arabs Emirates has started to clamp down on products that contain tobacco by controlling their use, sales and content. A major part of this was control was the banning smoking in public places and government buildings (Ghafour 110). The UAE in the last few years of the review era took important actions on the regulation of tobacco with the latest laws, like new taxes that are imposed on cigarettes, having warnings on the cigarette packs; also the ban of smoking in malls. However, the implication on the sales of tobacco since the introduction of these new laws has not been clearly visible. Either this is because of hardships in their enforcement, or the enforcement of the law has not been strict. For example, the imposed latest health warning images, that are not that shocking and thus they have not had a strong prevention impact on smokers. In the end, a combination of increased dangers of tobacco and government regulation is expected to result to a decrease in the sales of tobacco nationally (World Health Organization 127). In Dubai, there is wider ban of smoking in shopping centers, schools, amusement packs, hair solons, universities, internet cafes, offices, food court and hotels. This law allows smoking only in some places designed just for smoking. The law forbids smoking in a vehicle when a child who is below 12 years is there, and prohibits the sale of cigarette to persons under the age of 18 also, bans advertising of tobacco and its promotion. The defaulters of these laws may face fine of up to DH 1 million, whereas those breaking the law of underage smoking, risk a fine of DH 500 to Dh 10,000. Doctors, experts on tobacco, grocery store and child safety campaigners have welcomed this move. In addition, the solid partnership between the bodies of the government and the national awareness campaign was vital (Zain 18). The goal of the Dubai municipality is not to have a 100 percent shisha-free surrounding. The aim of the municipality is to prevent secondhand exposure of smoke. Thus, shisha café are supposed to move the residential areas, plan better ventilation, have notices that prohibit entry of those under the age of 20 years and partition non-smoking and smoking areas (Parker 211). Conclusion From the trends, it is expected that as the economy of UAE grows, the number of expats who come to live there will grow. This in turn is expected to increase the consumption of shisha. In addition, considering the smoking of pipe as both a traditional act among the domestic people and a tourist attraction, the use of shisha will increase given the anticipated increase in tourism. Growth will in fact be boosted by pipe tobacco. There are risks that are associated with smoking more so the smoking of waterpipe. There are diseases that result from smoking like cancer and infectious diseases. In addition, smoking is known to lower fertility (Schubert et al. 281). This shows the need for tobacco regulation law in order to take care of both the smokers and the non-smokers. The secondhand exposure on the non-smokers really has very adverse affect on their health than the smokers. There are places where smoking is not allowed especially public places. The law however, allows smoking only in designated places. The controlling of direct and indirect advertisement of tobacco will also make sure that the public places are now completely free from tobacco smoke. The smoking trends may also be affected by the strict control of the point of sale, the advertisement and smoking zone. Smoking trend is likely to go down. This will have an effected on the economy of the country with time. Work cited Al-Houqani, M, R Ali, and C Hajat. "Tobacco Smoking Using Midwakh Is an Emerging Health Problem-Evidence from a Large Cross-Sectional Survey in the United Arab Emirates." Plos One. 7.6 (2012). Print. Gerhard D. Shisha smoking is more harmful than cigarette. Medical News Today. (2007). Print. Ghafour PKA. Smoking caused 13,544 deaths so far this year. Arab News. September 6, (2008). Web. Harrison, A, Qasmool A. K. Bin, Suweidi E. E. Al, KK Sabet, K Al-Mansouri, M Al-Darmaki, MA Al-Marzouqi, and Y Al-Taire. "The Reactions of Patients and Doctors in the United Arab Emirates towards Smoking." Journal of Addictive Diseases. 15.1 (2006): 75-92. Print. Jayakumary, M, S Jayadevan, AV Ranade, and E Mathew. "Prevalence and Pattern of Dokha Use among Medical and Allied Health Students in Ajman, United Arab Emirates." Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention: Apjcp. 11.6 (2010): 1547-9. Print. Knishkowy B, Amitai Y. Water-pipe Smoking: An Emerging Health Risk Behavior. Pediatrics. (2005); 116 (1) 113-119. Print. Labib, Nargis, Ghada Radwan, Nabiel Mikhail, Mostafa K. Mohamed, Maged E. Setouhy, Christopher Loffredo, and Ebenezer Israel. "Comparison of Cigarette and Water Pipe Smoking Among Female University Students in Egypt." Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 9.5 (2007): 591-596. Print. Madil A, Hussein A, Omer H, Tirki G and Gaber I. Characteristics and risk factors of tobacco consumption among university of Sharjah students, 2005. East Mediterr Health j. (2007); 13 (6) 1449-1458. Print. Maziak, W. "The Waterpipe: Time for Action." Addiction (abingdon, England). 103.11 (2008): 1763-7. Print. Maziak, Wasim. "The Waterpipe: a New Way of Hooking Youth on Tobacco." The American Journal on Addictions. 23.2 (2014): 103-107. Print. Parker, Philip M. World Market for Smoking Tobacco: a 2007 Global Trade Perspective. ICON Group, (2007). Web. Schubert, Jens, Jürgen Hahn, Gerhard Dettbarn, Albrecht Seidel, Andreas Luch, and Thomas G. Schulz. "Mainstream Smoke of the Waterpipe: Does This Environmental Matrix Reveal As Significant Source of Toxic Compounds?" Toxicology Letters, 205.3 (2011): 279-284. Print. World Health Organization. WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2009 Implementing Smoke Free Environments. (2009). Print. World Health Organization. WHO Statistical Information System. Core health indicators: United Arab Emirates. (2011). Print. Zain, A. Campaign for Tobacco Free Dubai. Khaleej Times. June 1, 2009. Print. Read More