$185m spent annually on smoking in Kuwait

Around $185 million (Dh680.8 million) is spent annually on smoking in Kuwait, a country where smokers make up three per cent of the country's population, health officials have said in remarks to mark the ‘World No Tobacco Day'. "The health ministry is well-aware of smoking hazards and is working on combating the bad habit and its consequences," said Yousuf Al Nisf, Assistant Undersecretary for Public Health Affairs. "The ministry's celebration of the event is not limited to pinpoint challenges, but also focuses on terminating the smoking phenomenon as a whole," he said, quoted by Kuwait News Agency (Kuna). According to Ahmad Al Shatti, head of the vocational health department, an average of 2,330 cigarettes are consumed by a regular smoker annually in Kuwait. At the other end of the spectrum, 35 per cent of smokers quit in 2010, said Anwar Bu Irhama, the head of anti-smoking committee of the Kuwait Society for Preventing Smoking and Cancer (KSSCP). Established in 1980, KSSCP promotes awareness about the dangers of smoking tobacco with the aim of protecting people, especially children and the elderly, from being exposed to the dangerous epidemic. World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), observed around the world on May 31, is meant to encourage a 24-hour period of abstinence from all forms of tobacco consumption across the globe. The day intends to draw global attention to the widespread prevalence of tobacco use and to negative health effects. from / Gulf News