Jean Moiroud, President of Fivape, reacted on France Info to the CNCT's proposals, which Fivape denounced in a press release.
franceinfo: How many flavored electronic cigarettes are sold in your stores?
Jean Moiroud: It's the main product smokers buy to help them stop smoking. So this is a very important issue for us. We're a bit shocked by the request made by the CNCT. It's about 50 to 60% of the products. Knowing that the products used to initiate vapotage, the ones that help you get away from tobacco, are generally tobacco flavors, but also menthol flavors. Flavors are an absolutely crucial factor in maintaining motivation. It's a key factor in the effectiveness of the vapotage approach which, I would remind you, is not only the most effective, but also the most popular way for French people to quit smoking.
Do these aromas concern only young people or all audiences?
I understand and respect the issue of minors, especially as a parent. But you have to confront it with reality. Today, young people, with or without vape, start smoking between the ages of twelve and fifteen. What often leads them to do so is the use of cannabis. This should be a priority. The issue of minors and vape products was settled very clearly in 2016 by Marisol Touraine's ministry, which quite simply banned vaping products from sale to minors in specialist stores in particular. This ban is particularly well respected.
According to the Comité national contre le tabagisme, flavoring is the first step towards products that are highly attractive to young people, but it also leads to nicotine and addiction.
The question of the alleged bridging effect between vaping and smoking is a subject we've been grappling with for the ten years our products have been on the market. It has been totally debunked. No statistical correlation has been found between experimentation with vaping products, whether with or without nicotine, and a subsequent switch to electronic cigarettes. I have a very interesting statistic, which is that teenage smoking in the US, in high schools, has dropped from 12% to 2% between 2012 and 2022, against the backdrop of the so-called nicotine epidemic. It's a very interesting statistic to study, and shows that just because we're sounding the alarm about nicotine consumption among teenagers doesn't mean that there isn't a concrete collapse in smoking among them.
What impact does this 50-60% drop in sales have on your businesses?
They would be totally threatened. But it's not just an economic issue. It's above all a matter of public health and how we try to help smokers quit. In France today, some three million people rely on vaping products on a daily basis to help them quit. And the majority of these people use flavors to quit smoking. What do we do? Do we deny them access to the products that help them on a daily basis? Are we sending them back to smoking without scruples? And leaving only tobacco flavors on the market isn't exactly a winning strategy. How can you keep smokers away from tobacco with the very flavor they're trying to get rid of? You can't be serious. We've got to stop lumping poison and medicine together and let the vaping professionals do their job.