The European Commission has proposed to ban the marketing of flavored versions of “heating tobacco”, a type of consumption increasingly popular among young people.
Europe continues its fight against cancer. On Wednesday, the European Commission proposed to tighten the regulations related to the sale of heated tobacco in the 27 member countries. In particular by prohibiting the marketing of flavored versions sold in the form of sticks. Supposed to be less toxic, heated tobacco is increasingly popular with young people and would come to compete with the electronic cigarette. However, scientific studies have refuted this marketing argument and the Commission considered that heated tobacco causes addictive nicotine peaks and generates other chemicals potentially hazardous to health. ” Nine out of ten lung cancers are caused by tobacco, we want to make smoking as unattractive as possible to protect the health of our citizens and save lives“, explained the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides.
Restrictive measures to limit consumption
The Commission’s idea is to discourage current and future consumers by banning the potentially more palatable flavored versions. “To achieve this, it is essential to take stronger action to reduce tobacco use(…) and to keep pace with developments to cope with the constant flow of new products entering the market – which is particularly important to protect young people“continued Stella Kyriakides. This initiative is part of the plan beat cancer “which aims to” create a tobacco-free generation where less than 5% of the population uses tobacco by 2040 “, said the Commission.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the dangers of heated tobacco. Several studies have shown not only that it does not help smokers to quit smoking conventional cigarettes, but in addition that it can even initiate addiction in non-smokers. According to pulmonologist Bertrand Dautzenberg: “Heating tobacco is smoked in five minutes, producing a nicotine peak in the blood: it is this that is responsible for the addiction. The tobacco industry seeks neither more nor less to maintain or create dependency. »