"Governments can decide on the scope of ban on public smoking and expand it to several outdoor areas, as they find applicable to protect the common people from second hand smoking," Jawad al-Lawati, senior consultant, Ministry of Health, Oman, told Gulf Times.

Of late, several Qatar residents have been complaining about the growing menace of smoking in the outdoor areas, resulting in heavy increase in second hand smoking and other inconveniences. They say that people could be seen smoking in several public places such as parks, parking lots and streets among others.

Al-Lawati, a long time anti-smoking crusader, pointed out that second hand smoking results in deaths and disabilities. “The WHO Framework Convention On Tobacco Control (FCTC) states that second hand smoking is a seriously dangerous problem for the non- smokers. The parties of the FCTC have recognised that scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability. All the countries who are party to this framework have to take steps to decrease the issue of second hand smoking.”

The official suggested that the ban on public smoking can be extended to many outdoor places to reduce the impact of second hand smoking, if the governments wish so. “Article 8 of FCTC has clearly mentioned this. But several countries have limited the smoking ban in public places to indoor areas. But this can be extended to any outdoor areas such as parks, streets and other meeting points.”

“Article 8 says: Each Party shall adopt and implement in areas of existing national jurisdiction as determined by national law and actively promote at other jurisdictional levels the adoption and implementation of effective legislative, executive, administrative and/or other measures, providing for protection from exposure to tobacco smoke in indoor workplaces, public transport, indoor public places and, as appropriate, other public places.”

The official pointed out that governments can always bring the outdoor areas such as parks and roads under the provision of common public places where smoking ban is applicable. “They need to take care of the places and meeting points where several people assemble. These places need to be smoke free and the people need to be provided clean air that they can breathe without any harm to their health. More awareness programmes need to be conducted about the dangers of second hand smoking as many people are not aware of the dangers of it,” al-Lawati observed.

The official highlighted the example of a number of countries where such a ban is in force. “Several countries have implemented smoking ban in outdoor areas for several years. In Thailand, as early as start of this century, smoking has been banned in many public areas such as parks. During the same time frame, Malaysia also banned smoking in outdoor areas such as car parking. These must be the indicators for other countries to follow,” he added.