This is “malicious prevention”! The accusation made by doctors is scathing. It concerns the new “shock campaign” against tobacco. The daily La Croix tells us that a collective of health professionals has launched a petition to denounce the new spots of the Ministry of Health. A woman, on the verge of sobs, her voice broken, declares: “I wanted to tell you one last time that I love you and that your mom will always be near you”. “Tobacco kills one in two smokers. Stop smoking before it’s too late”. Another version of the spot, just as melodramatic, features a man saying goodbye to his wife.
“This prevention campaign uses emotional springs, essentially negative, such as fear and guilt”, denounces the collective of health professionals. Nearly 300 people have already signed the petition. “It is an instrumentalization of the emotional which, in our eyes, will not be of any effectiveness in smokers, declares in La Croix Dr. Patrick Lamour, director general of the Regional authority for education and promotion of health (Ireps) in Pays de la Loire. On the other hand, I can assure you that the spot is terrible for people who are currently battling lung cancer. »
An opinion shared by Jacques Lecomte, researcher in positive psychology and lecturer at the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre. “Playing on fear can have the opposite effect, and lead to increased tobacco consumption,” he confided to whydoctor last month. According to the researcher, faced with these shock spots, a large proportion of smokers try to control their fear through “psychological defense mechanisms”: denial (“cancer is for other people”); avoidance (“it’s too awful, I’d rather not think about it”) and the pseudo-regain of freedom (“they’re trying to manipulate me, I’m going to ignore them”).
The National Institute for Prevention and Health Education (Inpes), which designed the campaign, defends itself and declares to La Croix that “malicious action is first and foremost that of the tobacco industry who sells a product that will kill one in two consumers”. One certainty, fear alone is not enough to make smokers quit. It must be accompanied by a weaning help message.
The other very interesting lever is the increase in the price of tobacco. According to RTL, the government is considering increasing the price of a pack of cigarettes by 30 cents. But that would only be a 4% increase. Largely insufficient, according to tobacco specialists, who claim, with supporting evidence, that a big blow is needed – a 10% price increase – to hope to bend the curve in the number of smokers.
