The Alliance Against Tobacco and several parliamentarians are holding a press briefing at the National Assembly on Thursday, May 25 to once again demand a ban on the Puff, the disposable electronic cigarette. Why this pressing demand?
The problem with this Puff is its accessibility and its marketing. Sold around nine euros, at tobacconists, in convenience stores, or e-cigarette shops, the Puff is displayed with showy colors, and flavors that clearly target teenagers. Even if these cigarettes with a cherry, Tagada strawberry, unicorn candy or cotton candy flavor are in theory prohibited for minors, in practice 13% of adolescents would have used them last year, indicates Alliance against tobacco. The magazine What to choose, who last month sent teenagers aged 12 to 14 to buy Puffs in a dozen outlets in Paris, found that half deliver them without difficulty.
Smoking a Puff is not trivial for the health of a teenager. It is less dangerous than a classic cigarette since the vaper inhales neither combustion products nor carbon monoxide. Some Puffs contain up to 5% nicotine, which promotes the onset of smoking later. For Professor Loïc Josseran, president of the alliance against tobacco, this disposable electronic cigarette is “a predator of youth” because in a teenager nicotine impacts the brain more than in an adult and creates a stronger addiction. Tobacco addiction is born in youth, he recalls. More than 90% of adult smokers started before they were 18.
Health and environmental hazard
There are also puffs without nicotine which also pose a problem. Even without nicotine, for doctors, two problems remain: first, that of whimsical aromas whose user knows neither the composition nor the long-term toxicity, yet the lungs of an adolescent are more sensitive than those of an adolescent. an adult and American studies have already reported asthmatic bronchitis in some vapers. Moreover, beyond the health problem: these disposable plastic cigarettes, containing a lithium battery are an ecological aberration since obviously this highly polluting waste is not recycled.
Some countries (Germany, Belgium, Ireland) have already banned these Puff. In France, the Minister of Health, François Braun, said he was in favor of banning it, and a ban bill tabled by Francesca Pasquini, ecologist deputy for Hauts-de-Seine, currently has 63 signatories in eight political groups. It should be discussed in the hemicycle after the summer, with the aim of achieving a ban by the end of the year.