JEDDAH: Hospitals and doctors have intensified the Kingdom’s anti-smoking campaign, which has already become widespread with smoking restrictions in many public places.
“Strangely, despite the campaign against smoking, the habit seems to be growing,” said Dr. Ashraf A. Amir, chief medical officer at the International Medical Center.
Smoking is bad for health and the environment, but it continues to grow among men and women with tobacco manufacturers reporting gains in their annual financial results, said Dr. Amir.
Dr. Amir also warned of the serious health problems that smoking could cause in the long run and advised smokers to kick the habit “before it is too late.”
He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a presentation on “Smoking: Dependence, Mechanisms and Cessation” by Dr. Karl Fagerstrom of the Smokers Information Center, Sweden.
Over 120 doctors from public and private health care centers and hospitals attended the lecture, which was organized by Pfizer Inc. to elevate the level of public awareness on deadly and hazardous habits such as smoking.
The lecture featured — in addition to many other topics — statistics on tobacco’s worldwide public health toll, smoking-related deaths around the world and its impact on overall mortality rates for men. “Smoking is responsible for one in 10 adult deaths,” he said.
Dr. Fagerstrom also presented important World Health Organization standards developed earlier at the International Conference for Development and their relevance to the region. He also introduced several treatments for smoking, in addition to different nicotine replacement products such as patches, gum and nasal sprays.
Dr. Fagerstrom also highlighted the advantages of therapy over other solutions. Therapy decreases craving and withdrawal symptoms to a noticeable level as it works on reducing the satisfaction and reward gained from nicotine in the first place.
The session underlined important tips on dealing with smokers for doctors working at anti-smoking clinics and general hospitals. He also stressed the various difficulties smokers may face during their journey to finally quit, as it is important for a doctor to understand the difficulties to help a smoker quit.
Dr. Fagerstrom, who specializes in tobacco smoking, nicotine dependence and stopping smoking, has held many leading positions in medical and educational institutions, including the University of Uppsala. He is the founder and president of Fagerstrom Consulting and Smokers Information Center. He has administered different clinical trials for stopping smoking and performed five successful “smoke-enders” trials.
