Amman, May 30 (Petra) – Tomorrow, May 31, marks World No Tobacco Day,
held this year under the global theme “Unmasking the Appeal:
Countering Nicotine and Tobacco Addiction.”

The campaign focuses on exposing the modern marketing tactics and
flavor profiles used by manufacturers to target adolescents and young
adults.

On this occasion, the Higher Population Council (HPC) released a
detailed policy disclosure today, Saturday, cautioning that tobacco
use in Jordan has surpassed public health concerns to become a
critical socioeconomic structural hurdle.

The council emphasized that tobacco expenditure inflicts direct
financial strain on household living standards, disproportionately
penalizing low-income brackets.

According to national tobacco prevalence metrics tracking individuals
aged 15 and older, more than half of the Jordanian population
consumes tobacco products in various forms. Demographic breakdowns
indicate smoking prevalence ranges between 53 and 71 percent among
males, compared to 29 percent among females.

The data reveals that 83 percent of regular users initiated
consumption before reaching the age of 24, with 38 percent developing
dependencies prior to their 18th birthday – notwithstanding existing
regulatory frameworks prohibiting smoking within enclosed public
spaces and official institutions.

The National Strategy for Tobacco Control 2024–2030 underscores a
correlation between income brackets and consumption habits, noting
that low-income populations experience higher vulnerability to
tobacco dependency compared to affluent segments.

Financial modeling shows that smokers in the lowest income quintile
spend 25 times more on cigarettes than on healthcare, 10 times more
than on education, and 1.5 times more than on household nutrition.

The individual mean expenditure on cigarettes alone is estimated at
78 dinars per month per smoker.

The HPC stated that this high rate of discretionary spending impairs
the ability of vulnerable families to service credit debt, acquire
essential nutritional items, purchase pharmaceuticals, fund
educational tracks, or cover baseline public transit costs to formal
employment centers.

On the clinical front, public health registries documented 10,755 new
cancer cases in Jordan during 2022. The three most prevalent
oncological diagnoses in the Kingdom – lung, bladder, and colorectal
cancers – remain etiologically linked to tobacco use.

The direct fiscal cost of cancer treatments currently drains at least
350 million dinars from national healthcare allocations annually,
with financial models projecting this figure to exceed 500 million
dinars by 2030.

Chronic tobacco exposure is also an established catalyst for
cardiovascular disease, ischemic strokes, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease (COPD), and compromised reproductive health and
fertility markers across both demographics.

The HPC concluded that high tobacco spending diverts essential
capital from human development priorities, directly weakening
familial capacity to invest in generational upward mobility.

Concurrently, the economic burden of chronic disease management
depletes household savings and depresses aggregate workforce
productivity, creating structural poverty cycles that delay broader
socioeconomic development goals.

//Petra// AA