Smoking Awareness Society (Kafa) has issued a warning against “organized campaigns by tobacco companies targeting children and young people through small cigarette packets designed to make smoking attractive”. Abdullah Sarouji, the executive head of Kafa, told Okaz that the campaigns, purportedly launched to deliberately coincide with the United Nations' May 31 World No Tobacco Day, involve the promotion of tobacco products by offering gifts such as watches, mobile telephones and laptop computers to encourage children to smoke. Sarouji also criticized television channels in the Gulf for their cooperation with the campaigns. “They broadcast scenes of people smoking in their most popular soap operas and use the heroes of film and television series to show them smoking,” Sarouji said. Sarouji also said he “could not rule out” tobacco companies using their influence in the media to stop some programs that highlight the dangers of smoking. Earlier this week Sarouji reiterated Kafa's appeals to the Ministry of Trade to force tobacco producers to place images of persons suffering from cancer and other tobacco-related illnesses on cigarette packaging in the Kingdom, saying that Kafa was calling for at least 50 percent of packaging to be given to graphic images. “Lots of European and Arab countries already put these images on packets and those that have done so have seen a tangible fall in the number of smokers,” he said. “While almost every day food and drink and cosmetic products are withdrawn from the market because they are found to contain cancer-provoking substances, cigarettes are still readily available despite being shown by health organizations to be the principle cause of lung cancer, throat cancer, heart disease and hardening of the arteries.”
