Health Minister Victor Shemtov told the Knesset yesterday that the number of narcotics addicts in Israel was “liberally” estimated at 12,000. Most of them, he stressed, smoke relatively harmless hashish. Responding to a question from MK Shlomo Lorincz of Agudath Israel, Shemtov denied reports that El-Fatah, the largest of the Palestinian organizations, was introducing hashish into Israel to drug the populace and make it more susceptible to conquest.
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