Ragings for illicit advertising against a manufacturer of vapeo products: the National Committee against Smoking (CNCT) announces this Monday, May 26 on Monday, attacking King Aroma to counteract a new substance that the association considers more addictive than classical nicotine.
With the theme, this year, “Let’s read the mask!”, World Day of the World on May 31 aims to highlight the strategies of tobacco and nicotine manufacturers to “make their products more attractive, especially for young people,” this anti -bac association underlines.
Therefore, it points out “the appearance and worrying promotion” of 6 -Metil -Nicotine or metatin, an analogous of nicotine -composed with the nearby chemical structure, identified in certain vapeo products sold in France and in other parts of Europe since the beginning of 2024.
The CNCT, which recently had British tobacco and Philip Morris cigarettes condemned by “illegal advertising”, has decided to continue the same reason before the King Aroma company, which sells products that contain this new molecule, presented “as innovative, tobacco or nicotine -free” on its website.
“Healthier” cigarettes?
The site promotes “notable” products such as a “healthier and more safe alternative for vapers”, which “is not absolutely verified from a medical point of view,” says Mr. Hugo Lévy, CNCT lawyer. He “stands out and encourages the purchase of a vapeo product: this is clearly under the provisions of the Public Health Code that prohibits the advertising of vapeo products,” specifies the AFP.
And the name “news”, accompanied by the mention: “does not contain nicotine”, it is likely that it will induce consumers by error in terms of safety and content “of these products, the association estimates.
Little studied due to the recent appearance, the 6-methyl-nicotine could damage more lung cells and their addictive potential would be up to three times that that of nicotine, according to preclinical studies, reports the CNCT.
“There is a risk of dependence that will come more easily, but there is no certainty, there are studies that are done, knowing that nicotine is already one of the most addicted substances that we know: it is more than heroin,” says Anne Batisse, head of the Paris Addicted Center. “The problem of these new synthetic products is that they have never been studied, or very little, in animals, so basically, guinea pig, is man,” he adds.
A strategy to avoid regulations
For the CNCT, the 6-methyl-nicotine allows the tobacco industry to “overlook the regulations that limit the maximum concentrations of nicotine and the capacity of vapeo device tanks”, resulting in a “young and vulnerable” audience towards the dependence of their products. Because attractive packaging and sweet aromas (muffin, frozen tail, caramel tobacco, ice mango, frost fishing, rainbow sweets …) do not go to teenagers.
In the United States, product manufacturers containing 6-methyl-nicotine “use pure marketing arguments: nicotine, without tobacco, better taste, better for the environment, since we do not need to plant tobacco fields, it can help quit smoking …”, says Anne Batisse.
Strategies close to those used for electronic cigarettes and nicotine sachets, says the CNCT, reinforced by a promotion on social networks, including Tiktok, by influencers that assimilate them to a stimulant such as coffee, improving concentration or sports.
In 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned about the fact that the regulation of many countries, focused on nicotine, could be passed by manufacturers thanks to analogues and recommended to fill the gaps to better supervise the practices of the sector.
“This is what we ask in France, because manufacturers already have a lot of other nicotine analogues in their boxes: we must prohibit them all so as not to enter a race between manufacturers and the law,” Martinet of the CNCT told AFP.
Source: BFM TV
