The Ministry of Health has recently completed a study to help curb tobacco use in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the US Center for Disease Control. Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeah, Minister of Health, ordered that the study should focus on preventive measures and how to raise public awareness in a professional way. The percentage of young tobacco users, aged 13 to 15, dropped from 19.3 percent in 2007 to 14.9 percent in 2010, according to the study. Dr. Ziad Memish, Assistant Deputy Minister for Preventive Medicine, said, “The study covered 50 intermediate schools in the Kingdom, 25 for boys and the other 25 for girls. The total number of male and female students was 1,715.” According to the results of the Global Youth Tobacco Survey on the Kingdom's youth, 30 percent live in houses where family members smoke in front of them while 65 percent of this age group want to quit smoking, Memish added. “The results of the survey have shown that 14.9 percent use a tobacco product while 8.9 percent smoke cigarettes and 9.5 percent smoke shisha.” A total of 25 percent of survey respondents find smokers more attractive than non-smokers while 17.5 percent find female smokers more attractive than female non-smokers – a misconception which should be dispelled by intensive awareness campaigns, Memish said. The study has also shown that 63.8 percent know that tobacco is harmful to their health; 31.1 percent had class discussions on the reasons for youth of their age taking up smoking; and 42.1 percent were educated in class about the harmful health effects of smoking last year, Memish explained. “A total of 29.5 percent of respondents live with smoking family members and breathe secondhand smoke; 37.5 percent breathe secondhand smoke outside their houses; 76.5 percent support a ban on smoking in public places; 64.8 percent want to quit smoking; whereas 68 percent quit smoking with help from others.” Dr. Majid Al-Muneef, General Supervisor of the Tobacco Control Program at the Ministry of Health and Secretary of the Anti-Tobacco National Committee, expressed his thanks to the Ministry of Education staff for their cooperation with the coordinators of the anti-smoking program of Health Affairs to make this study successful. “We will soon release the percentage of smokers among medical college students and intermediate school teachers. The MOH will conduct an extensive survey about the percentage of adult smokers aged 16 years and above. These studies provide several indications we use in directing awareness campaigns to fight tobacco,” Al
