In a column published in the newspaper The worldseveral personalities are warning about these single-use vaporizers which constitute a danger to the environment and health, especially for the youngest.
A “particularly devious trap for children and adolescents” but also an “environmental scourge”. A collective made up of doctors, tobacco specialists and climate defenders has just published in The world a forum calling on the government to “urgently” ban the disposable puff electronic cigarette.
Arriving on the French market in 2021, this vape, particularly appreciated by young people, is increasingly worrying the health authorities. If, like tobacco in general, its sale is prohibited to minors, the marketing strategies deployed by its manufacturers seem to target them in particular. This is evidenced in particular by the flavors offered: unicorn, mojito or even cotton candy…
The signatories of the forum thus alert to a craze that continues to grow. The recent studies cited are revealing: the use by teenagers of electronic cigarettes, including the famous puff, tripled between 2017 and 2022, according to figures recently published by the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT).
This survey is also alarming: in 2022, more than 13% of French teenagers revealed that they had already used this single-use cigarette. according to the ACT-Alliance against tobacco. Also according to this same study, the nicotine level – which can be up to 20 milligrams per milliliter – present in the puff can create a strong dependence and constitute a gateway to smoking.
A danger to the planet
Doctors and associations fighting against global warming therefore urgently call for support for the bill aimed at banning disposable electronic cigarettes tabled in the National Assembly in November 2022 and already signed by around thirty deputies from all walks of life.
Because if the puff is according to them to be quickly banned, it is also because it represents a major risk for biodiversity. According to the signatories of the forum, contrary to the spirit of the Anti-waste law for a circular economy of February 10, 2020, its non-refillable nature is unworthy.
Composed of plastic, a battery containing lithium, nicotine salts and containing traces of heavy metals, the puffs become “complex waste, poorly collected, not recycled” and “whose components can pollute the soil, the tablecloths phreatic and the oceans”, as the tribune indicates.
Beyond its health danger, therefore, the danger it represents for the planet arouses the anger of the signatories who call to copy Germany, Belgium and Ireland, and thus to ban any disposable vape.
