- 09:30
At the Ministry of Health, a few days ago, the air was (for once) smoke-free. But in every speech, in every figure, one could hear very loudly what the sidewalks of Beirut repeat in silence: in a country that ranks third worldwide for cigarette consumption, the real emergency is no longer to vote for laws, but to apply them.
The conference room of the Ministry of Public Health filled up early in the morning. Blue and white banners, printed slogans, serious faces. Under the slogan “With Every Breath… You Lose a Breath” – “With each breath, you lose a breath” – the ministry, in partnership with the National Committee for the Fight Against Cancer, was launching a national awareness campaign on lung cancer. Around the table: Minister of Health Rakan Nassereddine, Dr. Arafat Tfayli, responsible for monitoring the National Cancer Plan, Mrs. Lama Al-Sabbah representing the production company Sabbah Brothers, and, a bit apart but at the center of all emotions, a young widow, Gaelle Kibranian, who came to tell how the cigarette stole her husband.
From the outset, the tone is set: here, no half-measures. The heart of the campaign is tobacco in all its forms – regular cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, narguileh, passive smoke – and this implacable figure that all the experts repeat: more than 80% of lung cancers in the world are linked to smoking. The stated objective is clear: to alert, to push for smoking cessation, to reduce exposure to second-hand smoke and, in passing, to recall that public health is not a luxury but a right.
The Minister Facing the Wall of Law 174
In his speech, Rakan Nassereddine hammered home the urgency of “multiplying awareness efforts, especially among young people and very young people.” Family, school, media: everyone is summoned to do their part in the face of what he described as “a growing scourge.” The minister also pronounced the words that everyone expects as soon as one talks about tobacco in Lebanon: Law 174.
This law, supposed to strictly regulate tobacco consumption and to prohibit smoking in closed public places, remains, thirteen years later, one of the most openly flouted texts in the country. Smoky cafés, narguilehs on the sidewalks, cigarettes in restaurants, bars, administrations… On paper, Lebanon has a respectable arsenal; in real life, the smoke is winning.
“It is necessary to strengthen the implementation of the law on tobacco and to respect the ban on smoking in public places,” the minister insisted. Ici Beyrouth can only share this observation, while asking the question that thousands of citizens ask themselves: what is the point of invoking Law 174 at the podium if, at the bottom of the ministry, the first cafeteria is still serving narguilehs at all hours? In Lebanon, there is no shortage of laws, campaigns or press conferences; there is above all a lack of political will to enforce what already exists.
Lung Cancer, Public Enemy Number One
Beyond the Lebanese context, the global figures recalled during the conference are dizzying. Each year, in the world, more than 2.2 million new cases of lung cancer are diagnosed, for around 1.8 million deaths. On the map of cancers, the lung remains one of the deadliest, often diagnosed late, in patients whose story is almost always the same: years of smoking, sometimes “only” of smoke undergone, and symptoms taken seriously too late.
In Lebanon, health indicators show a worrying increase in cases of lung cancer. The correlation is obvious: explosion in the consumption of tobacco in all its forms, trivialization of narguileh among adolescents, omnipresence of smoke in public spaces. Another shocking figure recalled during the meeting: Lebanon ranks third in the world for cigarette consumption. A bronze medal the country could well have done without.
To this is added the economic cost: the burden of tobacco would represent nearly 1.9% of the annual GDP. At the scale of a bloodless economy, this means billions of pounds wasted on hospitalizations, treatments, work stoppages, not to mention the human cost, impossible to quantify, of shattered lives.
The Ministry’s Strategy: From School to the Primary Health Center
Dr. Arafat Tfayli, who is piloting the implementation of the National Cancer Plan, detailed the current lines of work. First, an education program in schools to explain, from a very young age, the dangers of tobacco. In a country where you see middle school students sharing a narguileh as they would share a fruit juice, talking early about risk, dependence and cancer is no longer a pedagogical luxury but a public health measure.
Next, the improvement of lung cancer screening tests, in order to identify earlier the patients at high risk, in particular heavy smokers. The ministry also wants to strengthen coordination with primary health care centers throughout the territory, so that the anti-tobacco message, cessation advice and referral to screening services do not remain confined to university hospitals in Beirut.
Dr. Tfayli also mentioned the creation of an anti-smoking body or federation, responsible for structuring efforts, involving learned societies, NGOs, the media and, ideally, municipalities. Because without relays in the field, no national strategy can resist for long the weight of social habits and economic interests.
Art, Media… and the Lebanese Reality
On behalf of Sabbah Brothers, Mrs. Lama Al-Sabbah recalled the role of the media and the audiovisual industry: “The screen does not only serve to transmit the news, it can be a bridge between official initiatives and the general public.” In clear terms: when soap operas, series or talk shows normalize the cigarette as an accessory of style, they also have the power to desacralize it, even to make it look outdated.
But here again, Lebanon lives in a permanent contradiction: anti-smoking spots on one side, disguised advertisements for narguilehs, photos of smoky evenings and influencers with a pack in hand on the other. Without an assumed cultural shift, the best campaign will remain background noise in a society where “smoking is normal,” and where asking someone to put out a cigarette in a café still sometimes earns you amused or even hostile looks.
The Human Face of the Epidemic
The strongest moment of the ceremony came when Gaelle Kibranian took the floor. No slides, no statistics, just a trembling voice and a story that we have already heard too often, but never in this way.
She told of her husband, who died of lung cancer, and their daughter, now seven years old, who is growing up without a father. She told of the attempts to quit, the relapses, the pack “that you never really let go of,” the evenings when you tell yourself that “it’s only one more cigarette.” Then the announcement of the diagnosis, the treatments, hope that dwindles and, in the end, an empty armchair at home.
In her testimony, Gaelle pointed to two clearly identified culprits: personal dependence on tobacco, of course, but also “the absence of national control” and this perception of tobacco as “a normal part of life.” As long as smoking remains perceived as a banal social reflex and not as a high-risk behavior, new families will join, year after year, the procession of the bereaved.
What This Campaign Says – And Does Not Say
This campaign has an undeniable merit: it reminds us, with figures to back it up, that tobacco is not a Mediterranean fatality but a massive, avoidable risk factor that ruins lives and public finances. It also puts the right levers on the table: school, primary care, screening, mobilization of the media, the need to enforce Law 174.
But it reveals, in hollow, a disturbing truth: in Lebanon, we know perfectly well what to do, we know to what extent tobacco kills, we know how much it costs… and yet, people continue to smoke in cafés, restaurants, sometimes even in hospitals. We continue to see teenagers passing a narguileh around on the sidewalk without anyone intervening. We continue to treat Law 174 as a vague piece of advice, not as a binding text.
The day when citizens will no longer be able to light a cigarette in a restaurant without being called to order, the day when cafés will themselves refuse to fill their clients with smoke, the day when checks and fines will be as regular as poster campaigns, this kind of conference will finally have found its natural extension on the ground.
In the meantime, each new anti-tobacco campaign looks like a paradox: “With Every Breath… You Lose a Breath” is displayed on the walls of the ministry and, once the microphones are turned off, the whole country goes back to taking a drag on its cigarette. The real break, the one that will bring down the 2.2 million cases and 1.8 million deaths in the world, will not be played out in slogans or PowerPoints, but at the precise moment when, in front of an ashtray, someone decides to crush their last cigarette… and when the Lebanese State, finally, really helps them not to light another one.
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