New products such as heated tobacco or electronic cigarettes, in particular disposable ones, are the subject of strong promotion, most often illicit, at tobacconists and in vaping shops, worries an anti-tobacco association. .
In France, the ban on “point-of-sale tobacco advertising” East “generally respected”estimates the National Committee against Smoking (CNCT) at the end of a study based on surprise visits carried out by an independent institute to a national representative sample of tobacco shops and vaping stores, from June 21 to July 29, 2021 .
But this is not the case for new tobacco and nicotine products, according to the association. The hot tobacco from the tobacco company Philip Morris is “massively promoted” and near a tobacco shop visited (47%) was ” in infraction “. Likewise, “84.5% of tobacconists advertising” for electronic cigarette “are illegal”according to the CNCT, as did 72% of the vaping shops visited.
A worrying situation
Faced with advertising pressure from tobacco companies, the CNCT is asking “the immediate prohibition of flavors other than that of tobacco for all products containing nicotine”. He also insists on better supervision of the sale of new products such as nicotine sachets, “which are neither declared to ANSES (the National Food Safety Agency, Editor’s note) nor in accordance with the law”.
For Professor Yves Martinet, President of the CNCT, “far from helping smokers in their smoking cessation, the multiplication of flavors in new products is only aimed at phishing young consumers”.
Since January 2016, advertising for tobacco has been prohibited in tobacconists – who have a monopoly on its sale –, while that for vaping products, highly regulated, is limited to the affixing of a poster in the store. , not visible from the outside. For the CNCT, these violation levels “reflect a systematic and deliberate strategy of circumventing the regulations in force encouraged by the absence of controls”.
A situation that is all the more worrying as with “the diversification of tobacconists, an increasing number of non-smokers, especially young people, visit these stores and are exposed to advertisements that specifically target them”, continues the association. As for the Internet, disposable electronic cigarettes are promoted there by influencers “extremely attractive”touted for their varied flavors and low price, which tends to “hide (their) addictive nature” and to “trivialize and normalize” nicotine use, she says.