A “particularly torturous trap for children and adolescents”, but also an “environmental scourge”. A collective made up of doctors, tobacco specialists and climate advocates has just published in The world a forum calling on the government to “urgently” ban the disposable e-cigarette.
Arriving on the French market in 2021, this vaporizer, particularly appreciated by young people, is increasingly worrying the health authorities. If, like tobacco in general, its sale is prohibited to minors, the marketing strategies deployed by its manufacturers seem to be aimed at them in particular. This is evidenced in particular by the flavors on offer: unicorn, mojito or even cotton candy…
The signatories of the forum thus alert about a madness that continues to grow. The recent studies cited are revealing: the use of electronic cigarettes by adolescents, including the famous puff, tripled between 2017 and 2022, according to figures recently published by the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT).
This survey is also alarming: in 2022, more than 13% of French adolescents revealed that they had already used this single-use cigarette according to the ACT-Alliance against tobacco. Also according to this same study, the level of nicotine -which can be up to 20 milligrams per milliliter- present in the puff can create a strong dependency and constitute a gateway to smoking.
A danger to the planet
Therefore, doctors and associations fighting against global warming make an urgent call to support the bill aimed at banning disposable electronic cigarettes presented in the National Assembly in November 2022 and already signed by around thirty deputies from all walks of life.
Because if, according to them, the puff is going to be quickly banned, it is also because it represents a great risk to biodiversity. According to the signatories of the forum, contrary to the spirit of the Anti-waste Law for a circular economy of February 10, 2020, its unrecoverable nature is unworthy.
Composed of plastic, a battery that contains lithium, nicotine salts and traces of heavy metals, the puffs become “complex waste, poorly collected, not recycled” and “whose components can contaminate the soil, the groundwater table and the oceans”. , according to Tribune indicates.
Beyond its danger to health, therefore, the danger it represents to the planet arouses the ire of the signatories who call on Germany, Belgium and Ireland to copy, and thus ban any disposable vape.
Source: BFM TV
