Israel: How leading tobacco firm exploited legal loopholes to advertise cigarettes to ultra-orthodox Jews

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The world’s leading tobacco company Philip Morris International exploited loopholes in the local law to market cigarettes to the ultra-orthodox Jewish community Haredi, a Jerusalem Post report said.

Citing a research study, the report added that the move led to a smoking addiction in the community.

The research study was conducted by doctoral student Amal Khayat and led by Dr. Yael Bar-Zeev along with researchers at the Hebrew University’s Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine. It was published in the academic journal Tobacco Control.

The study said that the firm’s advertisements targeted communities in which smoking was not common.

How Philip Morris exploited legal loopholes

“While the law restricted print advertising to one advertisement in each newspaper, 40% of the IQOS adverts placed were giant, two-page ads, effectively doubling the product’s advertising space while still being considered a single advert as allowed by the letter of the law,” the study found.

With inputs from agencies

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