“One in two smokers will die from their smoking” warns the president of the Alliance Against Tobacco

12 million French people smoke every day, a figure that has remained stable for four years. It is the leading cause of preventable death in France, with nearly 75,000 deaths per year. “One in two smokers will die from their smoking. alert Loïc Josseran, president of the Alliance Against Tobacco, invited on Wednesday November 1st on franceinfo to mark the start of Tobacco-Free Month. This operation, which has taken place every November since 2016, encourages smokers to quit smoking for 30 days.

For Loïc Josseran, Tobacco-Free Month is “the opportunity to question your consumption and your desire to smoke”and enter a “collective dynamic” stop. With relative success: “25% of those registered for the tobacco-free month succeed”but only 120,000 smokers are registered this year, a historically very low score.

Solutions to limit tobacco consumption are already there, according to the president of the Alliance Against Tobacco “if already in France we only respected the ban on sales to minors, in 20 or 30 years, we would be rid of smoking, because young people would not start, and the other generations would have stopped or disappeared”, predicts Loïc Josseran because “one in two smokers will die from their smoking”. So, “the government’s priority target must be the youngest, there are no other solutions to quit smoking”.

Raise prices to reduce smoking

On the issue of tobacco prices, the moratorium decided by the government for next year is a “major error”according to Loïc Josseran. “The World Health Organization deliberately repeats that it is essential to increase prices to reduce consumption. If there is a 10% increase in prices, consumption falls by 4%, and unlike what tobacconists and the tobacco industry say, the increase in prices does not increase the black market. 80% of smokers buy from tobacconists”.