Saudi Arabia Weighs to Ban Tobacco Sales to under 21s

Saudi Arabia is considering limiting the sale of tobacco products and raising the legal smoking age to 21 years, according to a government official.

"Work is underway on a proposal to prohibit the sale of tobacco products in grocery shops and supermarkets," said Dr. Mansour Al Qahtani, the Saudi National Committee for Tobacco Control's secretary general.

He stated that the committee is working with the Ministry of Health on executing a related World Health Organization policy, which includes raising the legal age of access to tobacco products and cafes from 18 to 21 years.

He stated, "We are working to raise this age to 21 years soon."

"Legalizing tobacco sales in some stores will make them less readily available than they are now in all grocery stores and supermarkets," Dr. Al Qahtani told Saudi TV Al Ekhbariya.

He went on to say that the steps will help identify tobacco product customers and create a database on them.

In Saudi Arabia, a country with a population of over 35 million people, the number of smokers is estimated to be over 5 million.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was ratified by the kingdom in 2005. Every year the tobacco industry costs the world more than 8 million human lives, 600 million trees, 200 000 hectares of land, 22 billion tonnes of water and 84 million tonnes of CO2.

The majority of tobacco is grown in low-and-middle-income countries, where water and farmland are often desperately needed to produce food for the region. Instead, they are being used to grow deadly tobacco plants, while more and more land is being cleared of forests.