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29 March 2024

No cigarettes, tobacco products sale in Dubai today

Published
By Parag Deulgaonkar

No cigarettes and tobacco products will be sold for 24 hours in Dubai on May 31, according to Dubai Municipality.

Notices put up in grocery stores in the emirate by the civic body state, “As part of the World No Tobacco Day, Dubai Municipality in cooperation with retail shops in the city will stop the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products on Friday, May 31, 2013, in all its branches over the emirates of Dubai.

"Therefore, Dubai Municipality calls upon the public to cooperate with it to reflect a civilized face of the city and their commitment towards the protection of health and safety.”

World No Tobacco Day aims to draw global attention to the widespread prevalence of tobacco use and to negative health effects, which currently lead to 5.4 million deaths worldwide annually.

The member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) created the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) in 1987. In the past twenty years, the day has been met with both enthusiasm and resistance across the globe from governments, public health organizations, smokers, growers, and the tobacco industry.

The UAE joined the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control on June 24, 2003 and ratified it on November 7, 2005. The UAE has its own anti-tobacco law.

Since January 1, all cigarettes and other tobacco products, which do not carry a graphic health warning on packs, have been banned in the UAE.

Last year, the statistics released by the Ministry of Health in cooperation with other health authorities revealed  the percentage of cigarette consumers was 18.3 per cent among males and 0.4 per cent among females on 1995 then reached 28.1 per cent among male adults and 2.4 per cent female adults on 2003.

The statistics showed that the consumption of cigarettes increased among males on 2009 from 14.9 per cent till 17.1 per cent on 2010. The total number of tobacco consumers in 2005 increased from 12.7 per cent to 15.3 per cent in 2010 among adolescents.