Appearing on the French market in 2021, will single-use electronic vaping devices, also called “puffs”, disappear in 2024? This is the wish of the National Assembly which unanimously adopted, Monday December 4, at first reading a text to ban these flavored disposable electronic cigarettes popular with a young public.
Cheap, multi-colored and with flavors of strawberry ice cream, watermelon, or chocolate… These non-refillable puffs offer a certain number of puffs for a nicotine level of between 0 and 20 mg/ml, which “opens the way to a strong dependence”, especially among minors, denounced the Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau.
“Their price is derisory, the fruity and sweet aromas are attractive, the discretion of the device makes them go unnoticed by parents,” lamented Francesca Pasquini, who submitted the text in November 2022. “The National Academy of Medicine qualifies the puffs of a “sneaky trap for children and adolescents”, insisted his co-rapporteur Michel Lauzzana (Renaissance).
Signed by 166 deputies, their proposal has the support of the government. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called for a ban on puffs in early September. “Among 13-16 year olds, one child in ten has already tried the puff,” warned Aurélien Rousseau, denouncing a “gateway effect to smoking” and an “environmental scourge.”
“A health time bomb”
In turn, deputies from all groups in the Assembly welcomed the initiative, adopted by the 104 elected officials present. “Puffs are a time bomb for the health of our fellow citizens,” warned Paul Christophe (Horizons). “We absolutely have to react,” said Stéphane Viry (Les Républicains). For the La France insoumise group, MP Rachel Keke called on “political leaders to set an example”, in a remark aimed at the Prime Minister often seen vaping in the hemicycle.
Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable mortality, with 75,000 deaths per year. These “are not simply statistics, they are first names, lives, broken and bereaved families”, launched Karl Olive (Renaissance) in the hemicycle.
Another argument in favor of the ban: “plastic and the lithium which compose them have a production method that consumes a lot of oil and water, extracted on the other side of the world in deplorable conditions”, insisted Francesca Pasquini .
The deputies behind the text and the government jointly hope for a ban on these single-use electronic cigarettes by September 2024. The measure is already part of the new government plan to combat smoking for “a generation free of tobacco from 2032”.
Advance procedure with Brussels
If the bill must still be adopted in the Senate without modification to hope for rapid adoption, it must above all go through a procedure at European level. The government must notify the European Commission of its desire to ban puffs. The latter then has six months to respond and give its opinion, particularly on the proportionality of the ban.
“We have chosen to focus solely on puffs to arrive assuredly and quickly at a pure and simple ban,” insisted Francesca Pasquini. In committee, Michel Lauzanna also called for avoiding expanding the ban so as not to contravene the 2014 European directive on “tobacco products”.
Anticipating criticism from certain MPs who would have liked to go further and also ban rechargeable e-cigarettes, he cited as an example the difficulties encountered by Belgium in complying with the European procedure.
The government could also anticipate and launch the procedure with the European Commission even before passing the Senate, to hope to achieve a ban by the end of summer 2024. In a press release on Monday, the environmental group at The Assembly called on the government to “notify the European Commission as soon as possible” and “to include the text on the Senate agenda” in the first quarter of 2024.