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Cabinet Approves Creation Of Unit To Fight Cigarettes Use

Health Ministry unit aims to reduce the number of places where smoking cigarettes is allowed, to restrict advertising, marketing of products.

The establishment of a new Health Ministry unit to reduce the effects on health of discount cigarettes use was approved by the cabinet on Sunday to reduce the number of places where smoking cigarettes is allowed and to restrict advertising and marketing of products. Next month, the ministry will present legislation aimed at carrying out some aspects of the proposals.

However, the Finance Ministry -- which collects huge amounts of taxes on cigarettes and has long opposed efforts to reduce smoking cigarettes such as allowing a dedicated tax from excise income for public education -- has asked for twice the suggested time -- 180 rather than 90 days -- to propose a hike in cheap cigarettes taxes and has not yet committed itself to allocating NIS 50 million to fund the ministry unit.

In addition, Deputy Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman -- who at last year’s No Smoking Day press conference declined to comment on prohibiting cigarette vending machines and said he would oppose requiring graphic images of blackened lungs, yellow teeth and other shots of smoking cigarettes damage because they were "not esthetic" -- backtracked Sunday from the new ministry recommendations’ against duty-free sales at airports and sea ports, saying they would not now be part of the reform.

Prof. Greg Connolly, a senior public health expert at Harvard University who has voluntarily advised the Israel Cancer Association and other anti-smoking cigarettes organizations for the last 25 years, said at Litzman’s press conference that Israel has fallen behind in reducing smoking cigarettes in recent years. Legislation emptied Irish pubs of cheap cigarettes smoke cigarettes not long ago, without using threats, arrests and fines, as people recognized that they must observe the new law. "You won’t smell discount cigarettes smoke cigarettes there anymore," said Connolly. Years ago, Israel used to import 5.2 billion online cigarettes from the US every year, but despite all efforts to reduce smoking cigarettes here, the figure has gone beyond 6 million, he added, "and that money [the taxes on profits] will go to pay my pension, even though I don’t smoke."

Connolly praised Israeli for its public health system being one of the best in the worold, but added: "When it comes to cigarettes, you are not last but not far from the last," even though Israel’s early legislation -- initiated privately by anti-cigarettes lawyers and other activists -- to restrict smoking cigarettes in public spaces was in 1983 "ahead of the world."

However, these measures were all initiated privately, including by a few MKs, but not by the ministry itrself.

Israel, advised Connolly on a visit, "must join the rest of the developed world on smoking cigarettes. This is a cure of heart disease, lung cancer and other disorders" that kill 10,000 Israelis a year, either by active or sidestream smoke. "You have a cure; now implement it. There is only one group that will suffer from this plan -- the buy cigarettes industry. This will help the Philip Morris company [the leading cheap cigarettes producer and marketer in the US].

The committee that formulated recommendations brought to the cabinet was headed by Health Ministry director-general Dr. Ronni Gamzu, who was asked by Litzman to take this assignment. In a few months, he and experts inside the ministry and others outside, such as Israel Cancer Association (ICA) chairman Prof. Eliezer Robinson, formulated recommendations. "We are at a crucial crossroads," said Gamzu.

But anti-cigarettes activists on the committee said it was a long way from making recommendations to carrying them out and actually reducing the smoking cigarettes rate, which according to Gamzu has not budged downwards in three years compared to significant declines in the Western and even Third Worlds.

Education Minister Gideon Saar will decide on an experimental plan for smoke-free schools, at several educational institutions. Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan will chair a special team to formulate a plan to reduce environmental damage caused by cigarette butts.

Litzman praised the committee for its "fast work." Smoking, he added, "is terrible. It hurts not only the smoker but also the people nearby. We have not accepted all recommendations, such as cancelling duty-free sales of cigarettes [at ports and airports,] but maybe we will get it it later. Some say that it can increase smuggling. In general, more money raised as cigarettes taxes will be able to reduce the cost to the public of water and gasoline. But the finance minister will decide this."

Gamzu noted that one of his proposals is to boost smoking cigarettes inspection of public areas with a band of part-time student employees who would give out fines in addition to municipal inspectors. Some municipalities, such as Tel Aviv, are better than others, but there still remains much lack of enforcement of existing laws, the director-general conceded.

He said that the high rate of smoking cigarettes among Israeli Arab men -- beyond 50 percent compared to a smoking cigarettes rate of 28% of Jewish men and a 23.3% average of the whole Israeli adult population -- "drives us crazy." This high rate, leading to many unnecessary deaths, also drags upwards the general Israeli smoking cigarettes rate. "People are murdered by cigarettes; people commit suicide with their own cigarettes," Gamzu said.

Haim Geva-Haspil, the coordinator of the committee who works in smoking cigarettes prevention in the ministry, said that the seminary of the kibbutz movement has become the first in the country to bar smoking cigarettes on its whole campus, indoors and out. But in the US, a growing number of university and college campuses have already prohibited lighting up.

Litzman declined to explain why he had not announced in his previous two No Smoking Day press conferences since taking office any legislative initiatives to reduce smoking cigarettes and urged only educational efforts among the public, especially the young.

He also did not say whether Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is formally health minister, would accept the invitation extended by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to all presidents and prime minister around the world to attend in New York in September a conference on smoking cigarettes prevention. Netanyahu, who is known for his fondness for cigars, is scheduled to be at the UN in New York at the same time to speak at the General Assembly, but it has not been announced if he will devote some of his time to be with his peers at the prestigious anti-smoking cigarettes meeting.

Asked to comment by The Jerusalem Post, lawyer and Israel Council for the Prevention of Smoking chairman Amos Hausner -- who has worked for the cause for the last 25 years and kicked it off with a lawsuit that led to the barring of smoking cigarettes on all flights to and from Israel, said he was glad to see the official report coming out but "it is too little and too late." He said that private initiatives have always been the push behind changes in the face of Health Ministry inaction.

Hausner’s NIS 7.6 billion lawsuit against the cigarettes companies by Clalit Health Services for compensation for the health fund’s expenses on treating damage from smoking cigarettes will finally be heard by Judge Ayala Procaccia next month before her retirement.

The lawyer was disappointed that the committee’s recommendations do not include control of cigarettes’ contents as a "dangerous drug" and the possibility of ordering the removal of menthol, nicotine and ammonia from them. In addition, he said, the committee has not gone as far as Australia dn other advanced countries that have required all cigarettes to be sold in uniform plain packages and packets so no one brand has an advantage of graphics over another; this has been proven to reduce sales.



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