While an English government report maintains that electronic cigarettes are 95% less dangerous than tobacco, French addiction associations and electronic cigarette users are asking the government to review its national tobacco control plan, which will be considered in the Senate on Monday.
Three days before the examination of the Health bill in the Senate, will France follow the English pioneer on the front lines of the fight against tobacco? Great Britain, which becomes the least smoking country in the world (with a rate of smokers down to less than 20% versus an upward rate, at home, to 35%), will it encourage France to follow suit by granting all its legitimacy to the electronic cigarette in its ambitious national plan of tobacco control?
Because in the fog of multiple rumors around the dangerousness of the electronic cigarette, the huge thinning came from across the Channel, the 19 last August. The official study of Public Health England (the equivalent of our High Authority for Health) states: according to the best estimates, the electronic cigarette is 95% less dangerous than tobacco. For the English public health service, it must be promoted among smokers, through health professionals and cessation centers, as a key tool in the fight against smoking.
DR PRESLES, TABACOLOGIST "THE ENGLISH STUDY WRONG THE NECK AT ALL RUMORS ON THE HARMFULNESS OF ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE"
A report which consolidates the positions supported by associations fighting against addictions and users of electronic cigarettes. In a joint press release on August 26, they called on the government "to follow the English example" and to review its copy of the measures which "curb the use" of electronic cigarettes (ban on advertising, ban on electronic cigarettes). use in public places). " The English report is clear: 1. the more electronic cigarettes are distributed, the less young people smoke. 2. There is no danger of passive vaping. This study twists the neck to all the rumors about the harmfulness, the risk of inducing young people to smoke, and the danger for non-smokers. Importantly and new, it is a government authority that publishes these results, that of a country with an exemplary tobacco control plan. "Says the tobacco expert Philippe Presles, expert of the electronic cigarette and member of the scientific committee of SOS Addictions and Aiduce, associations signatories of the communiqué.
"IN FRANCE, 60% OF SMOKERS BELIEVE THAT THE ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN TOBACCO"
The English authors, whose report formalizes a turning point in the perception of the electronic cigarette, are worried that more and more people think that the electronic cigarette is just as harmful, or even more, than the tobacco cigarette, which encourages some smokers not to go to vaping. " In France, 60% of smokers believe that it is more dangerous. It's scary !", Says the Dr. Philippe Presles. In Britain, they are one-third. We see that this country has better defended the electronic cigarette. There, there is no restriction on the place or on nicotine dosages. "
“TOBACCO SALES ARE STILL UP. THIS IS A GOVERNMENT FAILURE ”
According to this specialist, the negative perception of a weaning tool represents a serious risk in a country that counts daily 200 deaths related to chronic smoking. " As long as the electronic cigarette was growing, tobacco sales were falling. This year, a majority of French people think that it is more dangerous than the conventional cigarette and sales of tobacco are distributed again. It's a government failure", Laments Dr. Philippe Presles. "Our policies do not understand that we can not do only denormalization. This is similar to prohibition: we want to ban everything around smoking and, by extension, we equate the electronic cigarette tobacco. On the ground, we know very well that the only valid policy is the risk reduction strategy. It's better to take nicotine than to smoke. The electronic cigarette is a risk reduction tool, just like nicotine substitutes. "
What about the problem of the smoker's gestures that we keep when we vape? The tobacco specialist replies: " You find the same gesture in a person who drinks a glass of champagne than in the one who drinks a cup of Champomy. The banishment of the gesture is in a logic of absolute denormalization which becomes blind.»
DR LOWENSTEIN, ADDICTOLOGIST "IN FRANCE, WE ARE PARALYZED BY THE PRINCIPLE OF PRECAUTION"
Can the new breath that the English study brings to the electronic cigarette cross the Channel? The addictologist William Lowenstein, president of Sos Addictions, hopes a new impetus. But for him, this breath, quite characteristic of Anglo-Saxon pragmatism, is subject to a French trauma. " That there is a national anti-smoking plan in France, finally structured, is very good news. But we must stop with this precautionary principle compared to the electronic cigarette, which paralyzes us. We are always under the trauma of the Mediator or contaminated blood, which means that as soon as there is something innovative, the first reflex in France is to ask ourselves if we are really in a zero risk. We have to consider the benefit-risk assessment. It is obvious that the benefits will be a thousand times greater than the risks. Zero risk research becomes the symbol of zero research.»
« Until then, the deputies have remained deaf to all our calls“, Explains Brice Lepoutre, president of Aiduce, the association of electronic cigarette users whose scientific committee includes several specialists. "Today, some senators have paid attention to the British study. If on Monday nothing is retained in the amendments, it will be more difficult to fight afterwards. Now is the time.»
Source : Paris Match
