Disposable vapes have become the latest target of government crackdowns on vaping products. The Australian Government said earlier this year that disposable vapes would be banned in the country as the federal government moves to eliminate recreational vaping inside its borders. New Zealand also announced a ban on disposable vapes, which went into effect in August. And now France has signaled their intent to follow suit and also enact a ban on disposable e-cigarettes.
Speaking to listeners of the radio station RTL, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said that her government plans to ban disposable vapes, although she did not specify when this might happen. As if to provide the tobacco industry with some relief while hammering the vape industry, she indicated that the government does not intend to raise taxes on tobacco products next year.
According to the prime minister, disposable vapes are a gateway to smoking. It should be noted that this theory has not been proven. As Cristine Delnevo, PhD, MPH, the Director at Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies, wrote in an open access article published on JAMA Network Open, “e-cigarettes do not appear to be a gateway to cigarette smoking” at the population level.
“At the population level, e-cigarettes do not appear to be a gateway to cigarette smoking.”
According to Delnevo, the available data simply does not support concerns that vaping e-cigarettes serves as a gateway to conventional cigarette use among youths.
“Collectively, concerns about a gateway effect and a potential increase in youth cigarette use following the introduction of e-cigarettes to the US market are not supported by the data.”
Despite the lack of conclusive evidence to support the theory that vaping is a gateway to smoking, the French prime minister said that disposable vapes, which she claimed to be a gateway to smoking, are her primary concern, not cigarettes. “But that does not mean we are not vigilant about tobacco consumption,” she added.
The prime minister indicated that smoking is responsible for 75,000 deaths each year in France.
Rather than tackle tobacco smoking directly, Borne is focused on disposable vapes, which are commonly referred to as “puffs” in France.
France’s former Minister of Social Affairs and Health, Francois Braun, was quoted by The Guardian as having said that the ban on disposable vapes could be enacted “before the end of this year.”
