Tobacco company executives who market their cigarettes in Israel as "lite," "low tar," "mild," or "low nicotine" could face a prison sentence of one to two years.
This is the prescribed but little used punishment for violation of the 1981 Consumer Protection Law, which is the basis for a criminal investigation just launched by the ministry of commerce and industry against cigarette manufacturers and importers. They are suspected of misleading the public into believing that this form of tobacco is "safer" than ordinary cigarettes.
The investigation was initiated after the filing of a lawsuit in the Jerusalem district court last June by lawyers for Clalit Health Services, Israel's largest public health fund. They asked for an injunction to prevent cigarette manufacturers and importers from using the terms "light," "mild," "low tar," and "low nicotine" to describe and market their products.
The health fund argued that these terms were misleading because tobacco companies themselves had in several forums admitted that cigarettes with less tar or nicotine were no less dangerous to health. The court has not yet ruled in the case, but the ministry was pressed into taking action on its own by the lawyers' request for an injunction and efforts by the Israel Consumer Council.
As many as half of all cigarette sales in Israel are of "lite" or similarly "reduced" brands. Marlboro Lights, made by Philip Morris, is the most popular brand sold in the Israel Defence Forces' kiosks frequented by soldiers.
The European parliament recently recommended to its 15 member governments that tobacco companies be barred from using such terms on the grounds that they falsely suggest lower toxicity, but its recommendations are not due to come into effect until 2003.
Brazil was the first country in the world to put such a prohibition into force, followed by Canada. Israel could be the third to do so, said Amos Hausner and Lipa Meir, lawyers for Clalit Health Services.
The lawyers are also seeking nearly £1.3bn ($2bn) on behalf of the health fund in compensation for its huge expenses in treating smokers who become ill. Mr Hausner said that this was the first time anywhere in the world that a criminal investigation had been launched against tobacco companies suspected of defrauding the public by using misleading advertising terms.
Foreign brands being sold in Israel include L&M Lites and brands of the Brown & Williamson and British American Tobacco companies, and the Israeli tobacco company Dubek produces Time Lite and Golf.
The lawyers for Clalit Health Services presented documents to the court in which tobacco companies had conceded that lower tar and lower nicotine cigarettes were not "safer" than ordinary cigarettes and that cigarettes that are "mild" emitted higher concentrations of toxic substances than those that are not. A Canadian survey of smokers recently showed that most of them bought mild cigarettes because they thought they posed less of a health danger.
Dr Yitzhak Peterburg, director general of Clalit Health Services, maintained that many smokers were "tricked" into thinking that if they smoked mild or lite cigarettes, they enjoyed "health benefits." But that was not true, he said, and the companies had used these false messages to dupe the public. Children and teenagers were most easily lured into smoking by these brands, he said, adding that he hoped that an end to misleading advertising and marketing would reduce sales and damage from smoking.
A statement by David Kessler, a former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration and author of a recent book on the tobacco industry called A Question of Intent , was presented to the district court. He wrote that smokers of mild or lite cigarettes did not realise these caused just as much nicotine to be absorbed by their body as other cigarettes.
Asked to comment, a spokeswoman for Dubek, Hava Barak, claimed that the tobacco company had "never used health claims for using its ‘lite' brands" and that it regarded the term "solely as a definition of the taste of the cigarette."
The Eliachar tobacco importing company commented that terms such as "ultra-light" and "full flavor" were mere "descriptors and facilitate consumers' ability to distinguish among different product offerings."
