A study conducted in Paris shows that almost all teenage smokers buy their supplies from tobacconists, despite the ban on sales to minors.
Well, okay, that’s not a scoop for anyone; but science had to get to the bottom of it. In France, teenage smokers buy their cigarettes from tobacconists, who agree to distribute packages to them in defiance of the legislation prohibiting sales to minors.
A study published in the journal Respiratory Disease Review thus confirms what everyone knows. Conducted by Prof. Bertrand Dautzenberg, pulmonologist at Pitié Salpêtrière, the work falls within the context of the annual surveys of “Paris Sans Tabac”. Since 1991, the association has questioned Parisian middle school and high school students on their tobacco consumption and has changed its questions over the years.
Shopping at the tobacconist
To better understand how minors in the capital manage to find cigarettes despite the law supposedly preventing them from accessing them, the authors interviewed 7,025 middle school students (12–15 years old), 3,299 minor high school students (16–17 years old) and 3,243 high school students major. Among this population, the prevalence of daily smoking was 3.2%, 19% and 22%, respectively.
However, these young smokers have overwhelmingly declared that they have purchased cigarettes directly from the tobacconist – without having to bribe an adult smoker to make the purchase for them. Thus, among daily smokers, “90.7% replied that they had bought their tobacco from the tobacconist. This purchase concerned 74.6% of 12–15 year olds, 92% of 16–17 year olds and 94% of 18–19 year olds, ”the work specifies.
In addition, the younger the purchase took place, the higher the level of dependency appears to be, according to the study. “Having bought tobacco before 12 years old from a tobacconist was associated with a high addiction score at 16–17 years compared to those who had bought from a tobacconist only after 15 years”.
Tobacconists file a complaint
Last year, the main author of this work produced a press release discussing these results, which were unpublished at the time. This earned him a lawsuit against French retailers, represented by the Confederation of tobacconists, who then said that the young people of the investigation were mainly supplied on the Internet and lying to scientists to cover their tracks.
So much for young people; against Bertrand Dautzenberg, the Confederation initiated legal proceedings. “They are asking me for 55,000 euros – one euro per tobacconist,” explains the pulmonologist. They accuse me of being in the boot of the pharmaceutical industry and the e-cigarette, for which I would have organized a smear campaign ”. The deliberation will take place on November 30.
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