What if the electronic cigarette created a new generation of smokers? In its latest report, the World Health Organization (WHO) points to the techniques of the tobacco industry to make the electronic cigarette attractive, in particular with the aromas given to the products. More than 16,000 different fragrances have been identified by the WHO. A way to seduce young people, according to some professionals. For others, vaping remains the most effective way to quit smoking.
“These aromas are not used by smokers to quit smoking,” said Yves Martinet. For this pulmonologist, president of the National Committee against smoking, “they are there to seduce children, so that they pass to addiction to nicotine”. The tobacco companies would therefore use the electronic cigarette to sell more conventional cigarettes in the future. And for good reason, “the perfumes will mask the addictive risks of nicotine and the unpleasant nature of its consumption”, details Yves Martinet.
The electronic cigarette “is a tobacco product”
Like the WHO, Yves Martinet believes that more regulation is needed. First, make sure that the ban on sales to minors is respected. Then, he asks that the measures put in place for traditional cigarettes be extended to electronic cigarettes, with state taxation of products and a ban in spaces open to the public.
A position that is not shared by Bertrand Dautzenberg, pulmonologist, invited on Europe 1 Friday morning. The tobacco expert and president of Paris sans tabac underlines the clearly existing difference between classic tobacco, heated cigarettes and electronics. Heated tobacco looks like an electronic cigarette, with a resistance, but it heats real tobacco. “In its report, the WHO makes an assimilation which is contrary to public health,” he says. “These are radically different products, one is a tobacco product. The other is a tobacco product,” continues Bertrand Dautzenberg.
In the United States, “a very significant collapse in tobacco consumption”
And the electronic cigarette would not make children more addicted, according to the same pulmonologist. “Most young people who start to smoke do not put nicotine in it. Those who do put very little. And above all, many try it but do not use it on a regular basis”, demonstrates Bertrand Dautzenberg. Indeed, a young person who starts the electronic cigarette has a risk in six of becoming a smoker one year later, while the one who starts with the cigarette will be a smoker in one in two cases. Bertrand Dautzenberg takes the example of the United States where “we see a very significant collapse in tobacco consumption. Now, they are around 5% of daily smokers.”
Regarding the regulations recommended by the WHO, Bertrand Dautzenberg insists that France is already far ahead on this point. “There is not much concern at this level,” he concludes.
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