Okaz Newspaper I am sure that many of my friends, relatives and readers will be enraged by this article which discusses smoking in our sports stadiums. The latest statistics indicate that there are more than six million smokers in the Kingdom and that the country is globally ranked fourth in terms of tobacco imports; some statistics even place the Kingdom third. However, let me first bring your attention to some figures that will help us shed light on this obnoxious and health-damaging habit, which not only harms smokers but endangers the health of those people around them. Saudis spend around SR2 billion a year on tobacco. Tobacco-related mortalities in the Kingdom have jumped to 33,000 a year while the average number of cigarettes a Saudi smokes daily has reached 30. The dilemma here, in my opinion, is that the number of smokers is increasing at an alarming rate, especially among teenagers, i.e. students in middle schools. Some studies indicate that 50 percent of students smoke. In fact, the number of social smokers, those who smoke infrequently and consider themselves to be non-addicts, has also increased. We rank fifth in terms of the number of female teenagers who smoke. Currently, the percentage is estimated to be seven percent. We have a four-year-old law that bans smoking in public places and which has not been effectively enforced. We need to introduce penalties to eradicate this bad habit in public just as in airports where no one is allowed to smoke. Smokers do not care about their health, let alone the health of others. After all, they smoke in front of their children. We also need to impose penalties on smoking inside sports stadiums, especially in light of the fact that the General Presidency of Youth Welfare has a ban on smoking. In the West, stadiums have cameras that detect smokers. Everyone has the right to breathe clean air that is not polluted.
