Senators on Thursday passed a ban on the sale of e-cigarettes to under 18s. They fear that the product is a gateway to smoking.
Minors will soon be officially unwanted in shops selling electronic cigarettes. The senators adopted this Thursday the ban on the sale of e-cigarettes to minors under the age of 18, during the first reading examination of the bill on consumption. The National Assembly will however have the last word.
A gateway to tobacco?
“Products that resemble tobacco products, and in particular cigarettes, accustom young people, and even children from an early age, to smoking cigarettes. In this sense, they undermine the objective of denormalizing tobacco consumption supported by the framework convention on tobacco control ”, explains Professor Jean-Louis Touraine, the Socialist deputy who initially tabled the amendment.
A point of view that also seems to share Pr Bertrand dautzenberg at the origin of a report on the e-cigarette which recently worried that “the electronic cigarette becomes For the young a gateway to smoking. Although there is no proof yet that it is an initiation product that leads to smoking addiction ”.
And the specialist to point the finger at another danger of the e-cigarette, linked, moreover, to its trendy side. “There is a real risk that young people will be seduced”. According to a study reported by the latter, “two thirds of 12-14 year olds who have tried electronic cigarettes are non-smokers. This is why this doctor and others want regulations to quickly regulate the trade and consumption of e-cigarettes.
A fad across the Atlantic
And this e-cigarette precisely, already seems to have become a fashion phenomenon across the Atlantic. Suptake among young Americans has indeed doubled in one year. The phenomenon is also beginning to worry the country’s health authorities, “The rise in the use of electronic cigarettes is worrying. “, says Tom Frieden, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), because the nicotine contained in some electronic cigarettes, ” is a highly addictive drug and many young people who start with it can be doomed to be addicted their entire lives. “
The e-cigarette is much less novice
However, given that 90% of new American smokers are teenagers, as the Cdc reminds us, the question of the least worst arises.
According to the French Tobacco Society, the e-cigarette is undoubtedly less harmful than a traditional cigarette. Its secretary general, Dr Gérard Mathern, recently recalled that the latter contains, for example, tar, an extremely toxic substance. The conventional cigarette because of its combustion creates more carbon monoxide, a gas responsible in particular for cardiovascular diseases in smokers.
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