UAE’s Young shifting to cruder forms of smoking

With stricter checks in place on the use of traditional forms of tobacco, especially cigarettes, young people in the United Arab Emirates are ‘rapidly shifting to cruder and more dangerous forms of smoking such as dokha to get their daily buzz’, according to a story in the Khaleej Times citing a study published in Tobacco Control.

The Times said that dokha was an Arabic term meaning ‘dizzy’. It described the product as a blend of finely shredded tobacco mixed with other leaves, bark and herbs that was consumed in a pipe called a midwakh.

The study, carried out in the United Arab Emirates, said that many alternative tobacco products, such as hookahs, had grown in popularity and were used beyond the locale of their origin.

In the process, they had become a significant global public health concern.

This dissemination posed challenges to tobacco control efforts in the region, according to the study entitled, Midwakh/dokha tobacco use in the Middle East: much to learn.

“These products are cheap and easily available,” said Dr. Wedad Al Maidoor, head of the National Tobacco Control program at the UAE’s Ministry of Health. “The regulations are not as well enforced as we would like them to be,” she said.