Continuing the Chain(of thought)- Smoking

To continue on Baba's line of thought, I was on a bus trip to Barcelona recently organized by a French university. On the way to Barca we took one hour breaks every 2 hours so that all the students could smoke. On the way back, we stopped off in Spain near the French border not so that we could buy dinner (mind you it was 8pm and we wouldnt be stopping again for another 2.5 hours) but so that everyone could buy cigarettes which are cheaper in Spain than in France. I kid you not. Sorry, but coming from the USA this is absolutely ridiculous.


It made me wonder about the rest of the world, and Lebanon in particular. We are a small country, but I am proud to say we hold many acheivements, records and prizes. Sadly, amongst those are the following:

World Female Smoking Percentage
World Male Smoking Percentage

Yes, that's right. Lebanese women hold the world record with 57.1% of them smoking. Lebanese men, on the otherhand, come in 6th, with 61% of them smoking.

Can this possibly be true??? More than half of all women and men in Lebanon smoke?? What happened? How did it get so bad?? Is anything being done about it?

~LZ

PS: I'll have everyone know that BG recently quick smoking for several months before, sadly and much to my disappointment, picking it up again