The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing more than 7 million people a year, according to the World Health Organisation, WHO.

In its editorial on Friday, The Gulf Today said, "More than 6 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 890,000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.

"Health officials in the UAE are doing their best to help people stop smoking in line with the National Tobacco Control Programme," the UAE-based English language daily added.

It continued, "The idea is to provide state-of-the-art and world-class health facilities, in addition to encouraging the public to adopt a healthy lifestyle to prevent diseases, especially those associated with smoking.

"While cigarettes are the highest profile threat to public health, medwakh and shisha also pose a significant risk. It is not that alternative tobacco products are all quite safe.

"In fact, a team of researchers at the American University of Sharjah, AUS, has been working hard to dispel the notion that alternative tobacco products, ATPs, such as shisha and medwakh, a small smoking pipe popular in the region, are somehow less harmful than cigarettes.

"Research on a wide variety of commercially popular shisha charcoals and dokha, a tobacco usually mixed with herbs and spices and used in medwakh, earlier conducted at the AUS showed the presence of trace metals such as iron, lead, cadmium, chromium, cobalt and manganese. These were at concentrations similar to, if not higher than, cigarettes.

"Smoke emitted from these ATPs contains a wide range of compounds including carcinogens and central nervous system, CNS, depressants that can adversely impact health.

"The UAE’s strict laws are aimed at protecting the present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences generated from smoking tobacco and inhaling its smoke.

"But the community too has a major role in tackling the problem," the paper noted.

"The dangers of smoking are well known and smokers should realise that tackling the challenge ultimately lies in their own hands," concluded the Sharjah-based daily.

Source: Wam