ISRAEL
Israel’s ministry of justice has accepted the position of three voluntary organizations in Israel that iQOS is a tobacco product, and all the restrictions that apply to tobacco products should apply.
Both the Israel Cancer Association and the Israel Medical Association sent letters to the authorities to protest Ya’acov Litzman, Israel’s health minister, for preventing restrictions on the sale and marketing of iQOS in Israel. At the Society for Progressive Democracy, headed by lawyer Shabi Gatenio, applied to the High Court of Justice and asked for an injunction against Litzman.
Chairman of the Israel Council for the Prevention of Smoking, Amos Hausner, said, “It is a story of the little David toppling Goliath, Philip Morris.”
Limitations that now apply to all tobacco products will also be applied to iQOS, such as prohibiting its sale to minors, prohibiting smoking it in all public places where conventional cigarettes may not be smoked, excluding it from advertising in the electronic media and media for children and teens, and other restrictions for which violators are fined. Under the rules of Israeli administrative law, the position of justice ministry professionals is binding upon all governmental agencies, and their position supersedes the one expressed by any political figure, which in this case is the health minister.Philip Morris’ spokesman in Israel said that the company would “continue to market iQOS in Israel in a responsible way according to the law so that adult smokers would have better alternatives than continuing to smoke cigarettes.”