Calls For French Ecig Clampdown
Le Haut Conseil de la Santé Publique calls for an extension to vaping restrictions.
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by Dave Cross
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Le Haut Conseil de la Santé Publique’s (HCSP) position on electronic cigarettes has recently been updated but there remain some areas for strong concern among French vapoteurs. While they now acknowledge that vaping can be seen as a route to stop smoking or reducing tobacco consumption, they still cling to the notion that it can act as a gateway into cigarette consumption.
The HCSP also believe that vaping “induces a risk of renormalization smoking given the positive image conveyed by its marketing and visibility in public spaces.” It is their adherence to normalisation and the gateway that compels them to state France should “maintain bans terms of sales and advertising provided by law and extend the prohibition to use all places intended for collective use.”
Gaining little coverage in the media, but perhaps of far greater significance to French vapers is the HCSP’s call for “reflection” on the topic of making the electronic cigarette a medicalised product. This, as explained in a previous Le Figaro newspaper article, is all based around research claiming that nicotine was detected in the urine of people sharing rooms with vapers.
The study alleged that electronic cigarettes are popular with young people, one fifth claiming to have tried them (but without any indication of long-term use). In fact, the research also failed to provide any evidence of a gateway effect or the normalisation of smoking – but that did not stop the clamour for a clampdown on public vaping.
And so, on Thursday, the HCSP put forward proposals to prevent the million-plus French vapers from being able to vape in bars, clubs and restaurants. Realising that they stood on dodgy scientific ground, they stated a ban should be implemented “even if the risks of passive smoking are zero or extremely limited”.
Fédération Interprofessionnelle de la Vape (FIVAPE), the French vape trade body, lashed out at what they called the blind guilt of the body for public health. They denounced the HCSP’s call as “Kafkaesque” and instructed them that the priority should be the fight against smoking, not vape. It expressed fears that, in the eyes of the public, vaping would be seen as the same as smoking – setting back any potential progress for forward-thinking harm reduction approaches.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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