In a revealing report released Wednesday by Israel's Ministry of Health, disturbing trends in youth smoking have emerged alongside staggering economic costs to the nation. Perhaps most alarming is the discovery that 3% of children in grades 5-6 are smoking cigarettes daily, with rates climbing to 9% among high school seniors.
The comprehensive Smoking Report paints a complex picture of tobacco use across Israeli society, where more than one-fifth of the adult population currently smokes. The habit claims approximately 8,000 lives annually, with 10% of these deaths affecting non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke.
Gender and cultural disparities in smoking rates are particularly striking. Arab men show the highest prevalence at 39%, while Arab women maintain the lowest at 6.3%. Between 2016 and 2023, only Jewish women demonstrated a consistent decline in smoking rates, highlighting the challenges in achieving uniform progress across different demographic groups.
The financial implications are equally sobering. Israeli households spent nearly 10 billion shekels (approximately $2.7 billion USD) on tobacco products in 2023. While the government collected 8.3 billion shekels in tobacco taxes, the true cost to society far exceeds this revenue. Healthcare expenses directly attributed to smoking amount to 1.7 billion shekels annually, with an additional 1.9 billion shekels lost to decreased productivity, work disability, and sick leave.
Among religious groups, Traditional Jews show the highest smoking rates at 25.6%, with Traditional men reaching 34.1%. In contrast, Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) communities maintain the lowest rates, with only 2% of Haredi women engaging in the habit.
The report also reveals concerning patterns in secondhand smoke exposure, with 26% of non-smokers regularly exposed to tobacco smoke. The most common locations for such exposure are homes of friends and family (50.6%) and open public spaces (47.4%).
Enforcement of anti-smoking regulations appears to be weakening, with a dramatic decrease in fines issued - from 10,115 in 2022 to just 3,864 in 2023. Moreover, only 51 out of 257 local authorities submitted mandatory enforcement reports last year.
The Ministry of Health acknowledges that their current cost estimates likely understate the true economic burden, noting that their calculation model hasn't been updated in nearly a decade and falls below similar estimates in other Western nations. In response to these findings, the Ministry continues to implement various regulatory measures, including enhanced warning labels and tax increases, with a particular focus on preventing youth initiation into smoking.
Kikar HaShabbat and Kann News contributed to this article.
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