Tobacco smoking in Gambia

In Gambia, cigarettes are regulated as tobacco products and are legally allowed for sale and smoke, with some restrictions. The regulatory framework mandates health warnings on all packaging of cigarettes, enforces a minimum sales age of 18 years, and imposes legal restrictions on smoking in public places. The product can be legally imported for trade with a license, but there is a ban on all advertisements, online sales, and vending machine purchases. Additionally, an excise tax of 30%, contributing to a total taxation rate of 47.17% is applied to cigarettes.

Available data on smoking in Gambia provide significant insights into smoking prevalence and its health implications. The current tobacco smoking prevalence among adult males in the country was reported to be 18.1%, while among adult females, it was significantly lower with only 0.4%. The overall adult current smoking prevalence was 9.5% in 2024, showing a slight decrease from previous years, such as 13.1% in 2019 and 9.7% in 2020. The absolute number of smokers aged 15 and older in Gambia was approximately 155,000 in 2024 which shows a slight increase from 126,112 smokers in 2020 and decrease from166,465 smokers in 2019. For reference, the adult daily tobacco smoking prevalence in 2017 was 12.7%, with a prevalence of 25.5% among males and 0.5% among femles.

Smoking-related mortality data from 2021 show that 576 deaths were attributable to smoking, with males accounting for 457 of these deaths, representing 4.67% of all male deaths. In contrast, smoking-related deaths among females were 119, constituting 1.52% of all female deaths in the country. This data underscores the ongoing public health challenge posed by tobacco smoking in Gambia, although there is a noticeable decline in prevalence rates and the number of smokers.