Smoking cost hits KD500m in Kuwait

Health experts have warned against increasing rates of smokers, mainly those of electronic smoking amid reports that the habit has cost the country over KD500 million in 2022.

Dr Maryam Al Oteibi at a workshop on addiction in Kuwait said, “Depression increases by 2.4 per cent among e-smokers compared to others.”

“E-smoking is not a way to give up traditional smoking,” added Dr Al Oteibi, who is in charge of a clinic to help quit smoking at the Kuwait Society for Preventing Smoking and Cancer.

Smoking is on the rise among children and youngsters in Kuwait with around 28 per cent of those aged 13 to 15 years being smokers and that 12 per cent of girls becoming daily smokers, according to Al Qabas newspaper reports.

Meanwhile, Dr Khaled Al Saleh, the secretary general of the Arab Association for Prevention of Drugs and Addiction, told the same workshop that tobacco addiction is the main preventable cause of deaths in the world.

Earlier, Amal Al-Yahya from the Ministry of Health said that Kuwait ranked first in the Gulf in terms of smoking rate as 39.9 percent of men and three percent of women in the country are smoking.

Dr. Al-Yahya cited results of a study conducted by the Health Promotion Department stating that the average age for starting smoking among smokers in the country is 17 years old. She disclosed some children started smoking cigarettes at the age of eight, stressing this is very dangerous.