BEIRUT: Lebanese health experts calling for a comprehensive smoking ban have been given additional impetus to their cause after a major international public affairs magazine published a major study warning youth smoking rates were increasing dangerously. In a report published earlier this month by the Economist Intelligence Unit with sponsorship from international pharmaceutical company Pfizer, researchers warned that cheap and easily accessible tobacco was driving Lebanon’s youth to take up smoking, a habit many will continue into adulthood. 

The 28-page report, entitled “Tomorrow’s regular customers? Stamping out tobacco use in the Middle East and Africa,” also noted that while many countries were now introducing smoking bans in public places, the developing world was seeing a steady increase in smokers, accounting for some 70 percent of the world’s total smokers in 2005, compared to about 40 percent in 1970. 

The developing world will thus pay the highest price for tobacco use: the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that by 2030, 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths will occur in low- to middle-income countries, the report said. 

In Lebanon, over 3,500 people die each year because of tobacco exposure at a cost of around $900 million, according to the Health Ministry. 

Although adult smoking rates seem to have changed little, the high prevalence of young smokers in Lebanon “is particularly acute,” the report said, “with 65.8 percent of boys [aged 13 and above] smoking, double the rate among Lebanese men; and 54 percent of girls, which is nine times the rate for women.” 

The authors recalled a famous passage from a Philip Morris internal document that still remains applicable: “Today’s teenager is tomorrow’s regular customer, and the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while still in their teens.”

One reason for Lebanon’s high tobacco use is the tobacco industry’s extensive influence with the country’s private sector and politicians. 

The industry was able to draw in young people through flashy event sponsorship and minimal health warnings on tobacco products and taxation. Smokers were given further impetus to continue their habits by the perceived normality of tobacco use, the report said. In addition, “bans in restaurants or bars are virtually non-existent.” 

Lebanon signed the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005 but has made little effort to enforce it. A draft law to ban smoking in public places was submitted to Parliament in 2006 was quickly forgotten after the war with Israel. 

In spite of Lebanon’s grim outlook, the report said campaigners were “surprisingly optimistic” they can reverse the developments, citing growing government support and coordination with NGO efforts. 

The report itself will boost the demands of health experts, who held a workshop with Health Ministry officials Wednesday to reiterate the need for a comprehensive ban. 

At the workshop, Health Minister Mohammad Jawad Khalifeh said bans, coupled with strict regulation of the tobacco industry were proving effective in reducing the number of smokers and tobacco-related deaths.