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• Baghdad Fights Troubling Tobacco Trend Among Youth  

Nearly seven percent of adolescent Iraqis have smoked shisha, and more than three percent have smoked tobacco, raising concerns among health officials about future diseases that could arise as a result.

This was one of the findings of the Global Youth Tobacco Survey carried out recently by Iraq's Ministry of Health.

Shisha, also known as a water pipe or hookah pipe, has gained immense popularity in the Middle East.

The fact that it is so popular among Iraq youth is a red light for health officials in Iraq and is prompting officials to launch campaigns warning against the hazards of this practice and to prepare for future diseases that could occur among the adult population.

"It used to be only older aged men smoked it, but recently it's spread to all age groups,"

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• U.S. troops in Iraq to get cigar gifts 

The owner of Fumar Cigars in Phoenix says he has collected 6,000 cigars to deliver to U.S. troops serving in Iraq.

David Haddad said he packed his collected cigars into a package for the overseas troops and is personally traveling to Iraq to present his gift as "a little bit of hospitality," The Arizona Republic reported Wednesday.

"It's an honor to the heroes … because they do what they do (in war) to make it possible so that I get to do what I do ... My company offers ... cigars to resorts all over the world," Haddad said Wednesday. "It's to bring a little bit of hospitality to the troops."

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• Tobacco Use Among Students Aged 13--15 Years --- Baghdad, Iraq, 2008 

In 2008, Iraq's parliament ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) (1), which obligates participants to establish tobacco use monitoring, surveillance, and evaluation systems. Lack of data on adolescent tobacco use in Iraq led the Ministry of Health (MOH) to conduct the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) in Baghdad in 2008. GYTS is a school-based survey of students aged 13--15 years that is self-administered in classes in selected schools. As in most Middle East countries, tobacco use in Iraq takes the form of cigarettes and shisha (Figure) (2). Based on GYTS results, 7.4% of students aged 13--15 years reported having ever smoked cigarettes, 12.9% had ever smoked shisha, 3.2% currently smoked cigarettes, and 6.3% currently smoked shisha. Among never smokers aged 13--15 years, 13.0% reported they were likely to initiate cigarette smoking in the next year. Future declines in adolescent tobacco use in Iraq (and Baghdad) could be enhanced by expanding existing tobacco control programs to include prevention and cessation of the use of cigarettes and shisha, implementing measures that discourage adolescents who have never smoked from initiating tobacco use, expanding legislation to ban exposure to secondhand smoke in all indoor workplaces, and enacting legislation banning pro-tobacco advertising and sponsorship. . . .

The results from the Baghdad GYTS point to a number of challenges facing MOH tobacco control efforts. First, the use of shisha is twice as prevalent as cigarette smoking. Smoking shisha originated in ancient Persia and India, and spread throughout the Middle East and Asia during the 15th century (5,6). In the 21st century, smoking shisha appears to be a new trend in tobacco use and has recently become a preferred form of tobacco smoking for young persons, specifically women, in the Arabian Peninsula (7). For Arab women, shisha smoking carries less of a cultural stigma than does cigarette smoking (5,6). This is a concern because the harmful health effects of shisha can exceed those of cigarette smoking (2). Some reports indicate that the concentration of nicotine is higher from shisha smoking than from cigarette smoking (5,6). Levels of arsenic, chromium, and lead also are higher in shisha smoking compared to single cigarette use. Additionally, because shisha sessions typically last 45--60 minutes, shisha smokers inhale higher concentrations of these toxic substances (5,6).

A second concern is that the current cigarette smoking rate for girls (2.7%) is twice that for adult female cigarette smokers in Iraq (8). In addition, the likely initiation of cigarette smoking by girls who have never smoked cigarettes (11.8%) is significantly higher than the current cigarette smoking rate for girls (2.7%). These findings might indicate that girls' cigarette use is increasing

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• In Iraq, shisha cafes are in the air  

Although hookah cafes have enjoyed a fad in Western cities from Los Angeles to Berlin in the last few years, and smoking establishments are common throughout the Middle East, Iraqis have only recently embraced them.

The reason: Under dictator Saddam Hussein, the smoke-filled shisha clubs were seen as a breeding ground for conspiracy and dissent. The few restaurants and hotels allowed to open the cafes required numerous government permits and attracted a corps of eavesdropping intelligence agents.

It wasn't until the last year, when Iraq's security situation began to stabilize and business investment began to trickle back, that shisha cafes started popping up on Baghdad's streets.

Today the city has hundreds of them, varying from hole-in-the-wall dives to lavishly decorated salons.

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PETRE: Military out of step on smoking issue 

Smoking and I never became an item.

And then I joined the Army.

Smoking — tobacco use in general, actually — is prevalent in the military. At times it seemed that there were more smokers, or tobacco users, than non-smokers.

In formations sometimes, smokers were offered privileges the rest of us did not get. . . .

As a company commander, I remember getting only one flier from the medical facility encouraging soldiers to sign up for a smoking cessation class that was offered. It was the military’s one attempt to offer a program to help smokers to quit. It was voluntary, of course, and soldiers were offered group counseling sessions to talk about the dangers of smoking, nicotine gum or patches and all of it was free of charge.

No one in my unit jumped on the bandwagon.

In Iraq, smoking and tobacco products were so popular that those were the first things to fly off the shelf at the AAFES stores. . . .

And with all of the smoking and tobacco cessation efforts across the nation — anti-smoking commercials on television, high-priced tobacco products — it seems as if the military is “out of step” and barely making the same effort to save its soldiers.

After all, what happens when a soldier who’s been smoking or using tobacco products for 20 years comes down with a smoking-related condition such as cancer, cardiovascular disease or noncancerous respiratory disease?

That soldier will seek medical assistance from his or her local VA . . .

I’m sure there are a lot of people out there, just like me, who may perceive smoking to be cool. But, besides the harmful effects on a person, the effect on taxpayers’ wallets negates any coolness.

So, in honor of the annual Great American Smokeout, slated for Nov. 20, I urge all soldiers, non-soldiers and former soldiers, to put out that cigarette for the last time.

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CHEST: Combat Troops in Iraq Take to Tobacco at High Rate  

Action Points

* Explain to interested patients that this study found that the majority of troops in a battalion serving in Iraq used some form of tobacco.

* Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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• U.S. troops in Iraq are heavy smokers  

American sailors and Marines stationed in Iraq are more than twice as likely to use tobacco products as the average American, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

In a survey of 408 Marines and sailors, Dr. Michael A. Wilson found 64% used some form of tobacco: 52% smoked cigarettes, 36% used smokeless tobacco and 24% used both. In contrast, the national average for tobacco use is 29.6%. Wilson found the rate of tobacco use is higher now among U.S. troops in Iraq than was found in a 2004 survey of troops returning from the war.

Tobacco use was clearly linked to military service. About half of those surveyed said they had never used tobacco products before joining the military. . . .

Some controversy has surrounded the military's efforts to discourage tobacco use. Smoking among the troops has always been linked with deployment to foreign lands, but much more is known today about the health hazards of smoking . . .

"There is a culture of acceptance about tobacco in the military. . . .

The Defense Department recently launched a virtual anti-smoking campaign targeting enlisted personnel between ages 18 and 25 called "Quit Tobacco, Make Everyone Proud." The Department of Veterans Affairs also has a website on smoking cessation. But more effort should be spent to discourage tobacco use among newly enlisted troops and to discourage smoking in the war zone, Wilson said in an interview with The Times.

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MacKINNON: I am a Middle Eastern cigarette smuggler 

I left Zakho, a dusty border town, and ascended into the jagged mountains of southeastern Anatolia in a Turkish taxi, a white Ford Focus driven by a gruff man named Kemal. It would cost me $150, he said, for the four-plus hour drive between the predominantly from Zakho to Diyarbakir in Turkey. . . .

Kemal pulled me aside at the border crossing and showed me a black garbage bag stuffed with several cartons of Gauloises cigarettes.

"For you," he told me with a please-understand-this-or-we're-both-in-trouble look in his eyes. "Not for driver."

I got the message. If anyone asked, I smoke six packs a day (despite my asthma) and came to Iraq for the cut-rate ciggies. Got it.

Thankfully, the question never came up, and Kemal, the Gauloises and I glided through to the land of Ataturk.

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SUKMAN: Soldier's Diary: Smoking Cigars in Baghdad  

I am writing while my roommate Alex waits on me so we can smoke a cigar to finish off the day. We do this a couple of days a week.

Prior to heading back to the tents or trailers, we smoke a cigar and talk about what we intend to do when this deployment is over. If we head out of here in late September as planned, then tonight is the 140-day mark before we leave the country, barring anything unexpected. . . .

I have had my family and friends from home send cigars over, as have a number of other officers on staff. Next to toothpaste and baby wipes, they rank third in quantity of care packages. I am still working on a box I received in December.

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London mayor fumes over Tarik Aziz's cigar case  

Boris Johnson, a former journalist, gives police the item, which had belonged to Iraqi official Tarik Aziz. Johnson blames political opponents for launching an "idiotic" probe.

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Scotland Yard probes London mayor's Iraqi cigar case 

Scotland Yard has seized a red, leather cigar case from London's mayor in order to investigate whether it is a looted Iraqi artifact, officials said Tuesday.

Boris Johnson said he found the case five years ago in the bombed-out home of former Iraqi deputy premier Tariq Aziz while in the country as a reporter.

He spotted the case peeking out from beneath a piece of plywood when he was brought to see what looters had done to the villas of Saddam Hussein's regime, Johnson wrote in a column published Tuesday in the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph.

"The circumstances in which I came by this object were so morally ambiguous that I cannot quite think of it as theft," the London mayor writes.

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FRONTLINE: the dark side: interviews: lt. gen. michael delong 

That seems so unusual, because here's the Don Rumsfeld you describe and everybody else -- this is a micromanager of the first magnitude.

Ah, but now he's into a piece of war fighting he didn't know anything about. . . .

How was their relationship? In the beginning, was it tough?

Really tough. Franks and he had it out a couple of times. One time Franks said [to me], "You're going to be the new CINC [commander in chief] tomorrow, because I don't think I'll be here the next day." The tensions were really high, and Franks was not getting any more sleep than I was. By the way, he drinks maybe 15 cups of coffee a day, smokes two packs of cigarettes, cigars and chews, so he's running on adrenalin and caffeine and nicotine, so it doesn't take much to scratch that line. He and Rumsfeld went at it a couple times, and finally Franks said, "Hey, either let me run it or fire me, but I can't keep being second-guessed."

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• Cigarette sales in GCC down 12% due to smoking ban  

Ban on smoking in public places and selling tobacco to people under 20 have cut sales of cigarettes in the GCC by 12 per cent, according to industry experts.

Total sales across the region are about 60 billion cigarettes a year and Saudi Arabia is the largest market with an annual total of 12 billion. Small- and medium-sized tobacco manufacturers expect their business volume to decline further due to increased taxes and restrictions in regional markets.

But global giants such as British American Tobacco and Philip Morris International (PMI), which dominate the market, recorded an increased sales in the first quarter of 2008 mainly due to higher turnover in East Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Eema).

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Giving GIs a puff of home  

Sometime this month, an Army captain in Iraq named Ryan Main will receive a small white box mailed from a shop just a few home runs from Coors Field.

When Main opens it, he'll find 25 premium cigars, fragrant with Dominican tobacco, hand-rolled and shipped by a total stranger.

The stranger's name is Clay Carl ton. Whatever his other claims to fame, one stands out: He's the only Coloradan holding both a barber's license and a federal cigar manufacturing license.

"We really don't know who we're sending these cigars to," Carlton said. "They generally just go to an Army Post Office address. But that's fine. We know the troops enjoy them. They've sent us letters from the field."

Carlton owns Palma Cigar Co., housed in a brick building at 2207 Larimer St. The one-man tobacco operation is in the front, his two-chair barber shop in back. . . .

There are few if any pleasures soldiering in Iraq, but Carlton is bringing a bit of comfort to the troops, one cigar at a time.

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Iraq Rewards Trump Risks for Job Seekers 

Many Iraqis are also drawn to work in the Green Zone, manning shops that cater to the huge pool of contract laborers who eat rich dishes and hummus in the Freedom Cafe and buy whiskey and beer in the two liquor stores serving the area.

A 23-year-old Baghdad native, who asked that his name not be mentioned for fear for his life, manages one of the Green Zone's tobacco shops, which features five enormous hookahs and a floor-to-ceiling humidor full of Cuban cigars that can fetch $200 a box.

"I can get more money working here and it is worth it, despite the danger," the man, dressed in a tan track suit, said on a recent afternoon.

"I've been working here for a year. My wife and family knows, but I tell my friends I work in a grocery store in Karradah," he said, referring to a Baghdad neighborhood just across the Tigris River from the Green Zone.

With the $500 he makes a month, the man said he is able to support his wife and help his father and brother with food and rent. He works 11 hours a day for two weeks, sleeping in quarters behind the tobacco shop, then heads home outside the Green Zone for two days of rest.

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