According to the Company for the Industrial Exploitation of Tobacco and Matches (Seita), deliveries of tobacco to tobacconists have plummeted by 19% in just one month. A first. How did the government achieve this result?
Since 1990, the price of tobacco has gone from 1.7 to over 8 euros. The government’s timetable foresees further increases by 2020, bringing the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes to 10 euros. An initiative that accompanies a certain number of underlying measures such as the ban on smoking in public places, the advertising of tobacco or even the birth of neutral packages. According to prevention component of the government’s health strategy, presented on March 26,Anti-smoking treatments will also be gradually reimbursed like “any medicine”. Let’s take stock: are these measures bearing fruit?
Tobacco sales tumble
According to the Company for the Industrial Exploitation of Tobacco and Matches (Seita), deliveries of tobacco to tobacconists have plummeted by 19% in just one month. A first. By way of comparison, a decrease of 2% was recorded over the whole of 2017.
According to 13th annual report of the “tobacco1” dashboard of the Drugs and Drug Addiction Observatory – which gives a synthetic view of the evolution over the past year of the main indicators related to tobacco sales, treatment of smokers and prevention and information actions – sales of anti-tobacco treatments in pharmacies increased by 28.5% in 2017 compared to 2016. An increase due in part to the reimbursement of up to 150 euros – per person and per year – for nicotine substitutes prescribed by prescription.
The success of the electronic cigarette
Similarly, the use of electronic cigarettes has exploded in recent years in France: a study conducted by Matthew Carpenter, researcher in the fight against smoking and drug addiction at the cancer center of the Medical University of South Carolina and published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention last November, considers the electronic cigarette to be a good substitute for combustible tobacco.
During his research, he discovered that subjects who vaped smoked an average of 37% less cigarettes than smokers in the control group and were more likely to quit permanently. “Combustible cigarettes are the most harmful form of nicotine delivery and the alternative delivery of nicotine through electronic cigarettes could significantly reduce the risk of cancer and other illnesses for smokers,” Carpenter explained. Today, more than 3 million French people vape, including 1.5 million on a daily basis.
Global tobacco consumption on the decline
Overall, since the signing of a framework Convention of the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2005, smoking fell by 2.5% worldwide. Indeed, 180 states have committed, with their signature, to reduce the number of smokers. In France, the Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn has made the fight against smoking one of her battle horses. And for good reason:he number of deaths attributed to tobacco will increase by a third within fifteen years, if the fight against smoking does not intensify, warned the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2017.
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