Identified: drivers of student smoking in Qatar

Lack of parental care and supervision, bad company and easy access to cash are some of the factors responsible for the rising number of smokers among Qatar’s school students, according to a story in The Peninsula quoting an Al Raya report.

A recent survey is said to have shown that 15.7 percent of preparatory- and secondary-school students smoke.

A former supervisor of religious studies at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Rashid Al Oda Al Fadli, was said to have told Al Raya that bad company was mainly to blame for students’ addiction to tobacco.

“I would say that a student’s easy access to money and lack of parental supervision could also make him vulnerable to the vice,” he said.

Other factors included the smoking habits and attitudes of the drivers who ferried students to and from school, the willingness of shops to break the rules and sell cigarettes to those less than 18 years of age, and the influence exerted on students by fathers and teachers who smoked.

Meanwhile, Dr Abdul Nasser Saleh, Associate Professor of Social Work, Qatar University, told Al Raya that students could be influenced by television programs, particularly films and serials.