New products are heavily promoted among tobacconists and vape shops, worries an anti-tobacco association.
New products such as heated tobacco or electronic cigarettes, in particular disposable ones, are the subject of strong promotion, most often illicit, at tobacconists and in vaping shops, worries an anti-tobacco association. . In France, the ban onpoint-of-sale tobacco advertising” East “globally respected“, estimates the National Committee against Tobacco (CNCT) at the end of a study based on mystery visits carried out by an independent institute with a national representative sample of tobacco shops and vaping stores, from June 21 to July 29. 2021.
But this is not the case for new tobacco and nicotine products, according to the association: the heated tobacco from the tobacco company Philip Morris, Iqos, is “massively promoted”: close to a tobacconist visited (47%) was “in infraction“. And “84.5% of tobacconists advertising“for the electronic cigarette”are illegal“, according to the CNCT, just like 72% of the vaping shops inspected.
Since January 2016, tobacco advertising has been banned in tobacconists – who have a monopoly on its sale -, while that for vaping products, highly regulated, is limited to the affixing of a poster in the store. , not visible from the outside.
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The multiplication of aromas, a “phishing of young consumers”
For the CNCT, these levels of infringement “reflect a systematic and deliberate strategy of circumventing the regulations in force encouraged by the absence of controls“. A situation that is all the more worrying as with “the diversification of tobacconists, an increasing number of non-smokers, especially young people, visit these stores and are exposed to advertisements that specifically target them“, continues the association.
As for the internet, disposable electronic cigarettes are promoted there by influencers “extremely attractive“, praised for their varied flavors and their low price, which tends to “hide (their) addictiveness» and to «trivialize and normalizenicotine consumption, she says. For Professor Yves Martinet, President of the CNCT, “far from helping smokers in their smoking cessation, the multiplication of flavors in new products is only aimed at phishing young consumers“.
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The CNCT asks “the immediate banning of flavors other than tobacco for all products containing nicotine“and better supervision of the sale of new products such as nicotine sachets, “which are neither declared to ANSES (the national food safety agency, editor’s note) nor in accordance with the legislation“.
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