Israeli Health Groups Urge Lawmakers to Block Lower Taxes on E-Cigarettes

The Knesset Finance Committee is expected to discuss a decree that would reduce the tax on electronic cigarettes, just days after the Health Ministry said smoking causes more than 12,000 deaths a year in Israel, about 33 people a day. Public health groups say the move would contradict the ministry’s own warnings and worsen youth nicotine addiction.

A broad coalition of anti-smoking and public health organizations sent urgent letters to Health Minister Chaim Katz, Health Ministry Director General Moshe Bar Siman Tov, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, demanding that the plan be stopped. Signatories include the Smoking Cessation Project, the Israel Cancer Association, the Public Health Physicians Association, the Israel Society of Pulmonology, the Public Health Forum, the Medical Society for Smoking Prevention and Cessation, the National Council for Health Promotion, the Israeli Council for Smoking Prevention, and the Israeli Association for Health Promoters and Educators.

In their letter, the groups argued that it is impossible to wage war on the “epidemic of nicotine addiction among teenagers” while making the product that drives it cheaper. They said the ministry’s latest report describes e-cigarettes as the main threat creating a new generation of smokers and as a gateway to long-term addiction and to other tobacco and nicotine products. The report also warns of a worrying rise in experimentation among children and teens, a drop in the age of first use to grades 5 and 6, and, for the first time, a higher rate of teens trying e-cigarettes than regular cigarettes.

The groups warned that lowering taxes would make the products more affordable and easier for young people to obtain, even though market regulation, including licensing, oversight, reporting, and effective tax collection, has not yet been completed. They said the answer to enforcement failures and smuggling is not lower taxes, but finishing legislation and regulating the market. They also cited health risks from e-cigarettes, including severe lung damage, impaired brain development in adolescents and young adults, attention and learning problems, emotional instability, depression, and anxiety.

The organizations are now waiting for the Health Ministry’s position and are urging it to state publicly that it opposes the tax cut until regulation is completed. They warned that silence could be seen as support for a move that contradicts the ministry’s recent professional guidance.