Nicotine pouches, tobacco or even aromatic beads for cigarettes, these products are causing more and more poisoning, mainly among children and adolescents, warns the ANSES in a toxicovigilance report published this Thursday, in which it calls for “particular vigilance” on nicotine sachets.
Not only the supply of tobacco products, related products (without tobacco but with nicotine) or flavors for tobacco products “continues to diversify”, but “older products are also consumed, even prohibited: chewing tobacco and snus (tobacco in sachets for oral use)”, specifies the health agency.
A review of calls to poison control centers between early 2017 and late 2022 for these five products showed that the number of calls “has continued to increase since 2020” for nicotine pouches, snus and scent beads.
“Children and adolescents are the main victims,” says ANSES.
Several “probably underestimated” cases
In the case of nicotine or snus sachets, poisoning, sometimes with serious syndromes (prolonged vomiting with risk of dehydration, seizures, etc.), mainly affects young people between 12 and 17 years old, after “intentional” consumption. .
Tobacco-free nicotine pouches, which have recently appeared, contain, in a permeable fabric, polymeric fibers impregnated with nicotine and that slide between the lip and the gum. Despite their similar presentation, they differ from snus, which is prohibited in Europe, except in Sweden.
Faced with a series of “probably underestimated” cases and “significant publicity on social networks aimed at young people”, the ANSES considered it “urgent to raise awareness in the educational community, health professionals and those around young people about the risks.” “immediate but also from nicotine. dependence.
The coordinator of the study, Cécilia Solal, asked to “monitor” nicotine pouches “which have become very attractive to young people”, and called for “a regulatory framework for these products”, so far without “a clear status” or “any control”.
The ANSES also denounces “a new source of domestic accidents with aromatic beads” that are inserted in the cigarette filter, born from a deviation from the prohibition of aromas for cigarettes or rolling tobacco.
From three in 2020, calls to Poison Control Centers related to these products increased to 86 in 2022, with three-quarters of cases for children under three years of age. These were “always accidental ingestions,” also in the case of adults who mistook these marbles for candy or sucked on a poorly inserted marble.
Since “the packaging of these products includes fruit drawings in bright colors and is not equipped with a safety closure,” ANSES calls for a less attractive presentation.
Source: BFM TV
