Use of addictive substances in Israel during the war on Gaza rose from one in ten before COVID and one in seven during the pandemic to roughly one in four Israelis. The study by the Israel Center on Addiction and Mental Health (ICAMH) covered from October 2023 to December 2025. The study, “Prevalence of Substance and Behavioral Addictions and Common Mental Health Disorders in Israel,” opened by saying, we “assessed prevalence of problematic non-medical use of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, sedatives, prescription stimulants, and prescription opioid painkillers; problematic use of internet, social media, electronic gaming, gambling, pornography, and compulsive sexual behavior; and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety...”
The Times of Israel summary of the report noted findings that problematic use of any substance now exceeds 15% of the population, ...[s]edative misuse jumped from 3.8% of the population in 2022 to over 10% by late 2023; opiate and stimulant use nearly doubled; alcohol and cannabis use also rose.”
Psychiatrist Shaul Lev-Ran, founder of the Center, said that, “as a natural reaction to emotional stress and as a search for relief, we’ve seen a spectacular rise in the consumption of various addictive sedative substances... Some who had never consumed addictive substances started using cannabis, some used substances but increased their use, and some were already treated for addiction and relapsed.”