Health conscious Israelis launched a major public campaign against smoking last week. It received a strong boost from the visit here by the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Everett Koop. He is identified with the “warning” that appears on every pack of American made cigarettes: “The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous To Your Health.”
Koop, a long-time friend of Israel, came here at the initiative of a personal friend of his, Joseph Shane, a prominent Jewish activist from Beverly Hills, Calif. Shane, a strong advocate of the healthy life, was not involved in anti-smoking campaigns until he learned, on an earlier visit to Israel, that more Israelis died from the effects of smoking than were killed in wars or road accidents or left the country to take up permanent residence abroad.
Shane is now underwriting the anti-smoking campaign in the amount of $1 million a year for the next five years. He hopes to find other donors in the American Jewish community. He brought Koop here to lend his medical knowledge, experience and personal prestige to the anti-smoking cause.
The warning on American cigarette packs appeared long before Koop was appointed Surgeon General by President Reagan. He strengthened the language. The anti-smoking campaign in America was a prolonged struggle with the tobacco companies and their allied interests. It succeeded. The rate of cigarette smoking in the U.S. has been reduced to 30 percent from 42 percent in the early 1970’s, according to studies.
HEAVY SMOKING IN ISRAEL
In Israel, according to the latest statisties, about 37 percent of the adult popuiation smokes (there is increasingly heavy smoking among juveniles as well). The statisties show that 50 percent of Israeli youths enlisting in the army smoke. Three of every four discharged soldiers smoke, indicating that the habit worsens during military service.
Some of the heaviest smokers are found among the nation’s leaders. The late Golda Meir’s chain-smoking became something of an international trademark of the former diplomat and Premier. It is a problem in the present government.
Health Minister Mordechai Gur, a military man and former Chief of Staff, complained to Koop that smoking in the Cabinet room was “killing him.” Doctors have found that non-smokers can suffer the ill-effects of smoking simply by breathing the air fouled by cigarette smoke.
Former Premier Menachem Begin, a non-smoker, imposed a ban on smoking in the Cabinet room when he took office in 1977. But the new Premier, Shimon Peres, and his Defense Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, both heavy smokers, have lifted it.
Koop, addressing a meeting of 300 anti-smoking campaigners, most of them medical doctors, criticized Israel’s ministers for smoking. “They cannot smoke at a time when they are considered to be role models to the nation. They must take a stand for the health of the country which they govern,” the Surgeon General said.
According to Shane, “A man quits smoking when he puts down his cigarette. All he has to do is not pick it up again.” There is the rub.
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