The Egyptian Parliament has postponed a debate on a proposed anti-smoking law until October, a decision that has been criticized by several anti-smoking campaigners, reported the Egyptian Gazette newspaper, citing a local magazine on Thursday.
Al Mosawwar Arabic weekly magazine said that the bill was reportedly delayed for further discussion by Parliament at its coming session in October.
Critics were even more disappointed when the health ministry announced that the number of smokers was growing eight percent annually, while the population was only growing at a rate of two percent.
The ministry added that the number of smokers in 1990 was six million, 500,000 of whom were under 15 years of age. Health studies also show that smoking is the main cause of lung cancer among Egyptians.
According to recent statistics, cited by the Gazette, 42 percent of smokers who died in 1991 did so as a direct of smoking.
Despite this overwhelming evidence, the manufacturers deny that cigarettes can kill and that they are a major health, social and economic problem in Egypt.
Manufacturers even published an ad in 1997 in local Arabic-language newspapers saying that everything has advantages and disadvantages, the paper said.
The ad states that people should not only dwell on the disadvantages of smoking.
The critics attack the Egyptian authorities for not adopting a tougher stance against foreign producers of cigarettes.
Foreign companies have become fed up with the constraints imposed by Western governments in order to curtail the number of smokers, so they are now looking to other markets.
According to official statistics, cigarettes sales in the USA have recently plummeted 4.5 percent, while sales have shot up 17.7 percent in the Middle East.
Foreign cigarette companies have shifted a lot of their activity to the Middle East.
It came as no surprise to anti-smoking activists learn that Marlboro's Egyptian representative, Mohammed Mansour, who is also chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCham) in Egypt, has converted the warehouses in the Alexandria free zone into cigarette factories, said the paper.
The General Authority for Investment approved the conversion on the condition that the cigarettes be dedicated solely for export. However, there are no indications that the authority is strictly applying its ruling.
Foreign cigarette brands have been manufactured for the same cost in Egypt since 1986, despite the fact that their prices have increased five times in the same period, said the Gazette report.
The health problems associated with hubble-bubble, or water pipe, are also a subject of debate in Egypt, where they are wildly popular – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
