Maor Zion, a senior lecturer at the Israel Cancer Association for Children, Youth, and Soldiers, reported in a special Knesset meeting on the tactics used by companies which manufacture electronic cigarettes.
Among the tactics used to ensnare youth are free distribution in places of entertainment, and ensuring that there are places to purchase electronic cigarettes near schools.
Zion, who also served as spokesperson for former MKs Yehuda Glick and Michal Cotler-Wunsh, said, “I have a feeling of deja-vu, since we were already in this situation two years ago. The same people sat around this table then and warned us of the effects of electronic cigarettes, which already ages ago became a plague in the US. There, electronic cigarettes have infiltrated schools and reached the hands of children ages 12 and 13, exactly like what is happening now, here in Israel.”
“The experts warned us that this is what would happen – and we did not listen. Now, when I am a lecturer from the Israel Cancer Association and speak to students in elementary and high schools and soldiers at IDF bases around the country, principals admit to us the great anguish that this situation is no longer in their control – children smoke electronic cigarettes in classrooms, in the bathroom, during breaks, in the yard – in every place, at any time. Because there is no fire, no smoke, and no smell – so it comes into every place. In the meantime, this danger is spreading among children and youth in Israel, and last weekend cost the life of Medan Keller, a young boy who thought, apparently, like many others, that an electronic toy that is watermelon-flavored certainly can’t hurt.”

Zion also called on the MKs to raise the tax on electronic cigarettes to match that of regular cigarettes. “We need to ban the sale of electronic cigarettes in flavors other than tobacco. Whoever wants watermelon should buy gum, not watermelon-flavored hooka.”
A new research by Professor Hagai Levine from the Association of Public Health found that less than one kilometer away from every school in Israel, there is a place to purchase electronic cigarettes.
“Just before we passed the law banning the advertisement of tobacco and smoking products, representatives of Juul and other tobacco companies came here, one kilometer from the Knesset, with no embarrassment, and distributed lemon and watermelon flavors to whoever wanted,” Zion added. “The companies target children ages 12-13 on social media and here as well, and also in cinemas, where the central audience is children.”