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Anyone who has ever spent any time in a Cairo taxicab, restaurant, office, lobby, coffeehouse, cafeteria or university, or even at the zoo, knows just how ubiquitous smoking is. "There is a movement to be tobacco free in the whole world," said Ehab Assad, a tobacco control officer in the Egyptian Ministry of Health. "We cannot be away from this."
Mr. Assad said that as a first step the government late last month banned the shisha, or water pipe, in cafes of the crowded Khan el-Khalili marketplace. But just a few minutes after the government boasted of the ban, hawkers were swarming tourists at the Khan, waving restaurant menus, offering what else but shisha. They were selling apple-, orange-, lemon- and cherry-flavored, tobacco-filled pipes for 10 Egyptian pounds, or about $1.80.
Such is the early fate of the antismoking effort. Shisha is back in the Khan after a brief ban, and all around Cairo there is confusion as to what exactly the government is planning. "The End of Shisha?" read a headline last month on the news Web site Al Masry al Youm. So far, smoking continues unabated. . . .
"The main issue here is that we don't have democracy. Accordingly, our responsible ministers are not elected; accordingly, they don't really care about what they do to their own people," said Alaa al-Aswany, a best-selling author and social critic.
"I am telling you that the shisha will continue," he said.
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(Fortune Small Business) -- Want to plunge into the modern American melting pot? Try the offices of Social Smoke, a hookah manufacturer in Arlington, Texas.
Here a silk Persian rug and a piece of Arabic calligraphy, The 99 Names of Allah, share wall space with a signed photo of a Willie Nelson impersonator. There's a Chinese green tea set in the conference room, and Mom's homemade enchiladas are chilling in the fridge. Abrahim Nadimi, director of sales and marketing, is tapping a bobblehead doll of Dwight from the TV show The Office. "Welcome to the 21st century," he says. No kidding.
Social Smoke is growing gangbusters, and its success says a lot about the new international, cross-cultural landscape of American small business. It is run by Abrahim's father, Sayyid Nadimi, 51, who emigrated from Iran before the 1979 revolution, and his U.S.-born sons.
The Nadimis are tapping into America's deepening love affair with an ancient Middle Eastern tradition: hookah smoking. The company makes "authentic" Iranian and Egyptian hookahs in China, having tried and mostly failed to source them in the Middle East. Yet Sayyid is anxiously watching developments in Iran -- and praying the U.S. government will soon let him sell his product back to his homeland. Social Smoke is one of the largest and fastest-growing suppliers in the international hookah market.
All smokers will be intrigued by the advertisements promising them they can smoke anywhere, as those hanging next to cigarette packs at petrol stations in Cairo do. Featuring a woman wearing dark lipstick and puffing what appears to be smoke, after further enquiry it turns out that the "smoke" is not regular cigarette smoke. A salesperson gets out a small black box and demonstrates the "electronic cigarette" or e- cig. Does it sell? Apparently so. . . .
"We are concerned about the matter, and so is the Egyptian Ministry of Health," said Fatima El-Awa, WHO regional advisor, in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly. "We have given our opinion to countries in the region, and as a result Saudi Arabia has already prohibited the sale of the electronic cigarette, and Bahrain has set restrictions on its purchase," she says. In El-Awa's view, the e-cig is not healthy. "This product is being promoted with the claim that it is an effective measure to quit smoking, or as a safe method of smoking because it does not expose others to the danger of secondhand smoke," she says. "Yet, it has not been scientifically studied."
According to El-Awa, research has not been done to identify possible hazards of the e-cig. Although it is being promoted as a tobacco product, it is actually a pharmaceutical product, she says, as it contains nicotine, which is a drug. . . .
Nevertheless, according to the man in charge of trying to stop Egyptians from smoking, Mohamed Mehrez, director of the Tobacco Control Department at the Ministry of Health, smoking is still smoking whatever form it takes. "We take the WHO and FDA recommendations very seriously," Mehrez says, "and they have shown that these products negatively affect users' health, as well as the health of passive smokers around them."
The problem, as Mehrez sees it, is that e-cigs are creating a new generation of smokers.
The first thing visitor’s are greeted by in Eastern Tobacco Company’s (ETC) reception is a striking poster of Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx. In between them sits a massive pack of Cleopatra cigarettes, as if the well-known company brand is a large part of Egypt’s heritage. Funny, yes. But the picture doesn’t really lie. Eastern Tobacco products, including Cleopatra and Boston cigarettes and fruit-flavored shisha tobacco, are among the oldest and most well known products manufactured in the country.
Established in 1920 as a subsidiary of the Chemicals Industries Holding Company, ETC is the sole manufacturer of tobacco in Egypt. In the Egyptian market, at least 95% of cigarettes produced are domestic brands, the remaining 5% foreign brands that ETC manufactures under license. According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics’ records released June 2008, there are at least 13 million smokers in Egypt consuming nearly 80 billion cigarettes annually. . . .
Are you a smoker?
Of course. I only smoke ETC products; cigars and molasses. You know, cigars are becoming fashionable among women now. The only problem I have with smoking cigars, though, is my wife. . . .
Do your children smoke?
I have three children and I don’t encourage any of them to smoke. But I suspect that my eldest son smokes. He never smokes in front of me, though. Honestly, I feel ashamed when I see young people smoking. I feel sad. But I believe that ETC is only working to cover the demands of smokers, not to increase the number of smokers. You see, we don’t advertise our products. Personally, I feel scared when I see a young boy or girl smoking, but what can I do? This is the price I pay for my job. . . .
Fires erupt in big factories all the time and there is nothing specific you can do to stop this happening entirely. The factory didn’t stop working for one minute. We have four floors in the Al-Zomor factory. The fire started on just one floor and some paper reels were burned. It was amusing, however, to read in the papers that important files got burned in the fire. Why would I keep important files in a minor factory? Anyway, the fire lasted for a few hours, and that was it. We will try to work on preventing this in the future. I will start banning people from smoking in the company buildings, but what can we do? We’re a tobacco company. People smoke everywhere. This is our business.
Egypt may tax tobacco products to fund the country’s national health insurance plan, the Cairo- based finance ministry said in an e-mailed statement today.
A Bedouin man who works with his family as a cigarette smuggler has been charged with helping Hamas bring weapons to Gaza. Hassan Ali Suarcha was charged on Monday in the Be'er Sheva District Court with weapons smuggling and providing material aide to a terrorist organization.
Police say the Suarcha family, a Bedouin clan based primarily in the Sinai Peninsula, is involved in smuggling cigarettes and tobacco from Egypt to Israel. Cigarette smuggling is a lucrative trade – smugglers can earn twice the average monthly salary in just one day, and the trade as a whole brings in tens of millions of shekels each year.
Hassan Suarcha was one of several smugglers who began using his route to bring dozens of Kalashnikov rifles to Hamas, police say. The rifles were hidden in sacks of tobacco.
British American Tobacco, Egypt (BAT) signed a memorandum of understanding with the South Sinai governorate to provide hotel, restaurant and café patrons in Sharm El-Sheikh with designated smoking and non-smoking areas.
Under the framework of BAT’s global “Respecting Choices” initiative, the campaign will see some 200 hospitality staff in the city trained on the proper procedures regarding smoking in public places, including ventilation methods and area designation.
“As a major global holiday destination, and the first Green City in Egypt, we feel that we must do all we can to ensure that various options are available to all guests,” said Mohamed Hani Metwalli, South Sinai governor.
Through this project, clear signage will be placed in outlets directing both non-smokers and smokers to their respective areas. Staff will also undergo training sessions by BAT prior to the launch, in order to ensure that they are able to understand the policies, explain them and properly enforce them.
British American Tobacco, Egypt (BAT), together with the South Sinai Governorate, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at providing hotel, restaurant and café patrons in the Red Sea city of Sharm El-Sheikh with designated non-smoking and smoking areas.
Developed under the framework of BAT's global 'Respecting Choices' initiative and in partnership with the South Sinai Governorate, the campaign will see some 200 hospitality staff in the city trained in the proper procedures regarding public place smoking, including ventilation methods and area designation.
'As a major global holiday destination, and the first Green City in Egypt, we feel that we must do all we can to ensure that various options are available for all of our guests,' says Mohamed Hani Metwalli, Governor of South Sinai. 'This partnership with BAT allows all guests to enjoy the city's hospitality outlets while taking into account the need for specially assigned smoking areas.'
Recently, his breathing became so laboured he responded to a get-help ad in the newspaper.
He called the Syrian Centre for Tobacco Studies, an organisation dedicated to raising awareness about the dangers of smoking. . . .
Founded in 2002, the clinic consists of three rooms jammed with medical equipment. Patients smoke water pipes while doctors monitor their vital signs.
It is here Mr Yareen receives counselling for his addiction. But this personal battle is part of a much greater war to end Syria's love affair with smoking. And the world has noticed. Through research, health campaigns and collaborations with hospitals in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and the United States, the centre has been recognised with the Hamdan Award for best medical institute in the Arab world.
From this small office, researchers have worked with the American University in Beirut to study the harmful effects of water pipe smoking; Jordan University to investigate smoking among youth; John Hopkins University in the United States to research Arab children's exposure to second-hand smoke; and the University of Newcastle in the United Kingdom to study the determinants of women's health in poor cities in Syria.
The centre is supported by a five-year grant from the US National Institutes of Health.
Abdulla bin Souqat, the director of the Hamdan Awards, said the Syrian Centre is a rallying force that works to dispel strong misconceptions associated with smoking.
The notorious picture of a hospital patient that was recently placed on all cigarette packs has not affected the number of smokers, nor cigarette sales in Egypt, a study by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) revealed.
A picture of a patient with a breathing mask on his face — implying a lung disease — was placed on cigarette packs as specified by the new tobacco law that was approved by the People’s Assembly (PA) last June. The law stipulates that a detailed health warning should cover 50 percent of the pack on both sides.
The study by CAPMAS also found that more than 5 percent of an Egyptian family’s income is spent on cigarettes versus 2 percent of the income which is spent on health. In addition, the study also stated that developing nations spend $2,000 billion annually on cigarettes and citizens below the age of 35 represent 67 percent of total smokers in the country.
According to a report released by the health committee at the People’s Assembly, Egyptians smoke 19 billion cigarettes a year, spending LE 3 billion annually, and smokers in Egypt increases by 6 to 9 percent every year as compared to 1 percent in the West.
Instead of deterring smokers, the new set of warning pictures printed on cigarette packs are driving up the sales of metal cigarette boxes, Ibrahim El Embaby, head of the Tobacco Industry Division of the Industries Union, told local press.
According to the new tobacco law, which was approved by the People’s Assembly (PA) last June, a detailed health warning has to cover 50 percent of the pack on both sides. In addition to warning labels, cigarette packs now feature pictures explaining the side effects of smoking: a dying man in an oxygen mask, and a limp cigarette in reference to impotence, among others.
In addition, all forms of tobacco advertising are prohibited, and a 10 percent increase is added to the price of cigarettes. . . .
numbers show that the law is ineffective.
“For the manufacturers, pictures and warning labels on packs are nothing but a routine procedure and will not make their consumer quit smoking because it’s the ingredients of the cigarettes, like nicotine, which are addictive,” said Mahmoud Aoshb, a economics expert at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
“The Ministry of Health has to step in with intensive awareness campaigns in order to get Egyptians to quit smoking,” he added.
Starting Aug. 1, cigarette labels in Egypt will be required to carry images of the effects of smoking: a dying man in an oxygen mask, a coughing child, and a limp cigarette symbolizing impotence.
It's a major step in Egypt's fledgling anti-smoking campaign and a dramatic change in a country where public discussion of smoking's health risks is nearly nonexistent.
"I would like to quit but I just can't. But when you see pictures like this, like that sick man, that has an effect -- it does encourage you to stop," said Osama Sabri Mohammed, . . .
"This one specifically will have an effect on Egyptians, since they are really concerned about that," he said, when shown the image of the limp cigarette. . . .
But the campaign faces a tough challenge among Egypt's die-hard smokers.
Egypt is one of the top 15 smoking countries in the world: Nearly 60 percent of all adult males in this country of 79 million people use tobacco in some form, compared to the United States where around 24 percent of men smoke cigarettes.
After a period of relative stability, cigarettes will now be sold at higher prices as part of the newly declared price hikes the government instituted to finance public sector wage increases.
The ubiquitous local Cleopatra brand will now sell for LE 3 up from LE 2.25. At the opposite end of the spectrum Marlboro brands have seen a LE 1.5 increase from LE 7.50 to LE 9.
Brands such as Rothmans and L&M have also seen an increase of at least one pound to reach LE 5.5.
The smoking of the traditional `shisha' water pipe is increasingly emerging as a significant health risk in Egypt, due to air-borne tuberculosis (TB) transmission from pipe sharing and uncontrolled, manual preparation of the pipe.
Rania Siam, professor of microbiology at the American University in Cairo (AUC), said the most important risk factor for TB infection was close household contact with a TB case, but she said water pipe smoking (WPS) and the sharing of the pipe with someone with pulmonary TB led to a great risk of TB transmission, especially among young adolescents.
"`Shisha' [smoking] is Egyptian culture, where people smoke tobacco and inhale directly from this device. If I smoke `shisha', some bacteria may reside in it.
The campaign against smoking scored a winner this week when the new tobacco law made it through the People's Assembly (PA). The law incorporates the new amendments, proposed by Hamdi El-Sayed, chairman of the PA's Health Committee and head of the Doctors' Syndicate. These include a ban on smoking in indoor areas and on the sale of tobacco to those under the age of 18. All forms of tobacco advertising will be prohibited, and a 10 per cent increase added to the price of cigarettes. A detailed health warning will also cover 50 per cent of the pack on both sides. "The price hike is important in order to discourage youngsters from smoking and to decrease smoking in general, and reduce tobacco sales," El-Sayed said.