While Russia published a report a few days ago advocating banning the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2015 (see our article), the Ouest-France newspaper asks itself the question of whether such a measure could be introduced in France? Beginning of response.
THIS PROHIBITION WOULD NOT BE THE FIRST OF THE GENDER
This kind of ban is however not a first in the world. A similar provision has already been put in place in Tasmania, an island state of Australia. In France, a proposal to this effect was the subject of a parliamentary amendment, through the Socialist deputy of Bouches-du-Rhone, Jean-Louis Touraine, during the examination in the National Assembly of the health law authorizing the sale of packets of 2015 neutral cigarettes.
The MP PS proposed that the sale of tobacco is prohibited to citizens born after January 2001. Withdrawn from the bill before its adoption, the amendment provided that this prohibition be maintained in time, even in adulthood. In 2017, Jean-Louis Touraine is no longer so categorical.
« In the fight against tobacco, prohibition is not the right solution, he says. We know what gives such a ban. One only has to see the consequences of prohibition in the 1920 years in the United States. Instead, efforts should be made to make access to tobacco more and more difficult. »
In practice, tobacconists must ask each client for his identity card, to check his age. However, the scarcity of controls does not encourage professionals to apply the rules in force provided by law according to the MP. " The application of the law is not well done and for good reason. The probability that a tobacconist is controlled by the customs services is of the order of a control every 100 years! »
"A BAN IS NOT ON THE AGENDA AND WILL NOT BE!" "
To Jean-François Etter, a professor of medicine at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and a member of the Institute of Global Health, there are other less extreme solutions in France to keep young people away from tobacco: " The advertising of cigarettes should be banned because it is aimed specifically at teenagers, says the academic. Similarly, the effort on price increases must be maintained. We must also promote alternatives to combustion [ie electronic cigarettes, NdlR] because these products are less addictive and less toxic than tobacco cigarettes, and finally we must be more vigilant to the prohibition of sell tobacco to minors. »
As for a total ban on tobacco in France, it is not on the agenda and will not be »Judge Yves Martinet, President of the National Committee against Smoking (CNCT) and Head of the Department of Pneumology of the University Hospital of Nancy: " With 30% of adult smokers in France, that would be the revolution! »
The solution ? Emphasize "prevention" and not repression of this public health problem " so that future generations can not easily get cigarettes , Says the Socialist deputy Jean-Louis Touraine.
Source : West France
