With their tangy or fruity taste, their colorful design and their affordable cost, "puffs", disposable electronic cigarettes, are a hit with some teenagers... The Alliance Against Tobacco (ACT) is calling for their "immediate ban" in a press release released on Tuesday.

The anti-tobacco association considers this product “as harmful for the health of our children as for the environment”.

This fashion for small colored tubes that we inhale arrived in France at the end of 2021. Sold between 8 and 12 euros at tobacconists, on websites or in supermarkets, they come in a wide range of flavors such as "strawberry ice-cream “, “sparkling cola” or other “bubble gum”.

If they are generally sold without nicotine, some can contain up to 20 mg / ml.

“Transforming our young people into the smokers of tomorrow”

For the president of the ACT, the puff leads to a “pediatric epidemic of nicotine addiction”.

Asked by France Info, he believes that the manufacturers have never "intended to make it a weaning tool but a means of transforming our young people into the smokers of tomorrow".

According to a survey by the anti-tobacco association, 13% of adolescents have already used the puff and a quarter of adolescents believe that it is easy to obtain this disposable e-cig.

Coming straight from the United States, the puff "immediately made a hit" with smokers who are trying to quit but also with a younger public, admits the Confederation of tobacconists.

"This product has a certain marketing power", and influencers have advertised it on networks like "TikTok", contributing to their popularity with young people, regret the tobacconists.

They claim to "redouble our vigilance" but, according to them, "the message must also be conveyed by parents, the world of education...".

An “environmental aberration”

The ACT also calls for the banning of puff for ecological reasons.

It is an “environmental aberration”, believes the association.

Indeed, this "disposable plastic product, with a lithium battery", is a "waste that we are starting to find on the beaches", reports Diane Beaumenay-Joannet, project manager on plastic within the NGO Surfrider. .

"Because it's disposable and cheaper than a pack of cigarettes, and because the target is young, we will find more and more of them in the environment," she says, pointing to "the lack of communication on the fact that it must be returned to a suitable bin".

The Alliance Against Tobacco regrets, it, “an additional waste which comes on top of the 4.500 billion cigarette butts thrown away each year in nature”.

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  • Health

  • Smoking

  • Electronic cigarette

  • Addiction

  • Teenager

  • Youth