Advertising bill scuttled

Israel’s ministerial committee for legislation yesterday scuttled a bill that would have banned most tobacco-products advertising, according to a story in Arutz Sheva (IsraelNationalNews.com).
The bill, which would have embraced electronic cigarettes, would have excluded advertisements in printed newspapers, though newspapers would have been required to print anti-smoking messages of the same size as the advertisements alongside the advertisements.
The decision to torpedo the bill enraged Yehuda Glick, a member of the Knesset.
He alleged that the Government had succumbed to the interests of the media, which would have lost considerable sums from the loss of tobacco advertising, and the major tobacco companies.
“The Israeli Government is addicted to, bought by, and works for the tobacco companies,” charged Glick.
“The government never intended to approve the law. The postponement of the smoking products bill in the ministerial committee, after the law passed through my committee for first reading, is crossing a dangerous red line of government service for tobacco tycoons.”
Glick has made fighting smoking a major cause of his in the Knesset and recently ended a 25-day hunger strike he said was designed to pressure the government into raising taxes on rolling tobacco.