Tobacco.org

Smoking researchers target Syria 

But thanks to a $1.7 million, five-year international grant, this week they took a crash course on tobacco use in Syria. It didn't include the Marlboro Man.

The money is earmarked to launch the Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies, an effort that will include crafting smoking cessation programs for the Middle Eastern nation and training Syrian researchers. Dr. Kenneth Ward of the University of Memphis Center for Community Health is the study's principal investigator. Other researchers include Maziak, a Syrian physician and epidemiologist, and Dr. Tom Eissenburg of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Battling tobacco in Syria means helping Syrians kick cigarettes as well as the smoking done in cafes, homes and restaurants using a form of tobacco known as narghile and the water pipe or hookah Americans might recognize from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

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