In Switzerland, anti-smoking experts are asking for the authorization of nicotine levels five times higher for e-cigarettes than what the Federal Council. The request was made on Tuesday during the review by the Health Commission of Council of States of the new law on tobacco products.
A GOAL: REDUCING HEALTH COSTS!
Behind this proposal, we find Dominique Sprumont, from the University of Neuchâtel, Jean-François Etter, from the University of Geneva and Thomas Zeltner, the former director of the Federal Office of Public Health (OFSP). The idea behind this request: to push as many smokers as possible to e-cigarettes considered less unhealthy than conventional cigarettes.
For them, we must continue to protect minors against the dangers of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, through advertising and sales bans. But adult smokers should be given less harmful alternatives, they claim. The final goal would indeed be to drastically reduce health costs.
In addition, the Federal Council wants to set the maximum dose of nicotine in e-liquids at 20 mg / ml, as recommended by a European Union directive. But this limit is not based on any convincing scientific data, according to experts. Additionally, higher concentrations would allow vapers to satisfy their nicotine addiction while absorbing only a minimal amount of harmful aerosol particles, they explain.
A WARNING AGAINST JUUL!
Their proposal does not convince everyone, far from it. According to the Tages-Anzieger and the Bund, some 40 doctors wrote a letter to the State Commission to warn against new products such as
the e-cigarette Juul. According to practitioners, “the health risks will be far from negligible if the state allows these products to make the brains particularly sensitive of young people addicted to nicotine».
The director of the Swiss Foundation for Addictions, Gregory Vittoz, is also opposed to the experts' proposal. For him, the question of the level of nicotine in e-cigarettes is secondary. The most important thing is to prevent young people from vaping. The European standard of 20 milligrams proposed by the Federal Council is therefore a step in the right direction.
