World No Tobacco Day: stop the misinformation about vaping and nicotine!

To mark World No-Tobacco Day, FIVAPE commissioned OPINIONWAY to conduct an exclusive survey of French people's opinions on the health risks of cigarettes, vaping and nicotine.

FIVAPE wished to take over the work carried out by the SOVAPE association since 2019, censured in 2024 by its survey provider at the request of a "public health player", which had led to the dissolution of the association, which felt it could no longer fulfill its information mission¹.

This new survey was conducted in April 2025 and included only the two questions already asked by SOVAPE every year:

• What do you think of vaping compared to cigarettes in terms of health risks?
• Is nicotine carcinogenic?

How do science and health agencies answer these questions?

Since the early 2010s, vaping has been the subject of several thousand scientific publications creating consensus on the indisputable health benefits of vape compared to smoked tobacco. As for nicotine, studied and known for decades, it has been prescribed since the 1990s to help people stop smoking, in the form of patches, gums, lozenges and inhalers.

Back in 2015, a report by Public Health England²which has never since been denied, stated: "An expert study of the latest data concludes that electronic cigarettes are around 95% safer than smoked tobacco and that they can help smokers quit."

Continuous update, a Cochrane meta-analysis³ now summarizes 90 studies involving 29,044 adult smokers, and concludes: "We did not detect detected no evidence of serious risks from EC with nicotine... Evidence suggests that they [electronic cigarettes] work better than nicotine replacement therapy (NRT)..."

With regard to nicotine, the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer⁴ states: "Does nicotine cause cancer? No. "

Last summer, the French National Cancer Institute⁵ confirmed: "(...) nicotine, a substance naturally present in tobacco, is responsible for cigarette addiction , but is not carcinogenic. "

In short, science and health agencies have spoken, based on evidence: vaping is far less harmful than smoking, more effective than traditional substitutes, and nicotine is not carcinogenic.

How do the French answer these questions?

The new iteration of the survey, conducted by OPINIONWAY for FIVAPE in April 2025, confirms the responses collected by SOVAPE since 2019:  

• Only 9% of French people think that vaping is much less risky than smoking;
• 53% think that vaping is no less risky or even worse than smoking;
• 77% of French people believe that nicotine is carcinogenic.

While scientific knowledge is conclusive about the benefits/risks of vaping and nicotine for smoking cessation, the French are massively misinformed about the relative risks of these solutions compared with the harmful effects of tobacco.

This misinformation about vaping and nicotine is further corroborated by Santé publique France and INCa in the latest Cancer Barometer published in 2023⁶"79.4% of French people believe that electronic cigarettes can cause cancer."

Thus, despite scientific knowledge and the advice of public health agencies, the majority of the French population is unaware of the need for risk reduction.⁷ that vaping products offer in comparison with tobacco:

Despite scientific knowledge and the opinions of public health agencies, the majority of the population believes that nicotine is carcinogenic:

Stop the misinformation about vaping and nicotine!

15 million smokers. 20% of all cancers. 75,000 deaths a year. Smoking is a calamity. We all know it.

Yet vaping and nicotine are recognized as the most effective smoking cessation aids.⁸. It's unacceptable that the French, especially smokers, but also their friends and family, and even healthcare professionals, should be so misinformed about the relative risks between vaping and smoking, when vaping actually helps people to stop smoking.

This is tantamount to discouraging millions of people from trying vaping as a way of weaning themselves off tobacco and maximizing their chances of success. It is abnormal that an association such as SOVAPE should have been gagged and forced to disband for having denounced this counter-productive misinformation in the fight against smoking.

Stop the public authorities' reluctance to allow vaping!

On October 30, 2024, the eve of the 9th edition of Mois Sans Tabac, the Service Public d'Information en Santé (SPIS) published a comprehensive, well-documented article on its website, based on scientific knowledge. Entitled "Vapoter est-il dangereux?" (Is vaping dangerous?), the article objectively set out the benefits/risks of vaping and the benefits of integrating vape into the arsenal of tobacco control measures. But it was removed from the public website santé.fr in less than 24 hours - with a bailiff's report - without any explanation.⁹!

Advertising for vaping products is prohibited in France. French professionals, independent of the tobacco industry, are therefore powerless to defend their smoking cessation solutions in the face of misinformation, confusion and denigration, which create totally unfounded preconceived ideas.

FIVAPE calls on the public authorities to assume their responsibilities and put an end to the denigration of vaping and nicotine. French people's opinions must be based on science, with an objective view of the benefits/risks of vaping compared with tobacco, so that a pragmatic fight against smoking can be waged.

From now on, FIVAPE will carry out this survey every year on World No-Tobacco Day.

Additional resources :

• Download the full OPINIONWAY survey for FIVAPE: here
• Listen to: podcast When quitting smoking becomes a pleasure¹⁰- April 2025 - In 2013, Pr Bertrand Dautzenberg headed the first report on e-cigarettes in France, commissioned by Health Minister Marisol Touraine.
• Watch: Vapotage en France: la Fivape face aux idées reçues (in French only)¹¹ - Jean Moiroud, President of FIVAPE.
• Read: Merci la vape, white paper for a general interest policy on vape¹² by the associations AIDUCE, SOVAPE, LA VAPE DU CŒUR and FIVAPE.

1. SOVAPE throws in the towel - https://www.sovape.fr/dissolution-sovape-jette-leponge/ ︎
2. Electronic cigarettes: an evidence update - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/e-cigarettes-an-evidence-update ︎
3. Can electronic cigarettes help people quit smoking, and do they have any adverse effects when used for this purpose? - https://www.cochrane.org/fr/CD010216/CENTRALED_les-cigarettes-electroniques-peuvent-elles-aider-les-personnes-arreter-de-fumer-et-ont-elles-des ︎
4. Does nicotine cause cancer? - https://cancer-code-europe.iarc.fr/index.php/fr/12-facons/tabac/1164-la-nicotine-provoque-t-elle-le-cancer ︎
5. Acting for your health against the risk of cancer - https://www.cancer.fr/catalogue-des-publications/agir-pour-sa-sante-contre-les-risques-de-cancer ︎
6. Attitudes and behaviors of the French towards cancer, results of the 4th Cancer Barometer- https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/presse/2023/attitudes-et-comportements-des-francais-face-au-cancer-resultats-du-4e-barometre-cancer ︎
7.  Reducing health risks - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9duction_des_risques_sanitaires ︎
8. Effects of interventions to combat tobacco addiction: Cochrane update of 2021 to 2023 reviews - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.16624 ︎
9. Published and withdrawn by the Public Health Information Service (SPIS) : Is vaping dangerous? - https://fivape.org/vapoter-est-il-dangereux-service-public-dinformation-en-sante/ ︎
10. Healthier Humanity podcast Episode 8 When quitting smoking becomes a pleasure - Professor Bertrand Dautzenberg - https://alan.com/fr-fr/blog/prendre-soin-vous/a/healthier-humanity-podcast-episode-8-quand-arreter-de-fumer-devient-un ︎
11. Vapotage en France: la Fivape face aux idées reçues - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-rCnBz_Hc ︎
12. Merci la vape : pétition, enquête et livre blanc - Collectif associatif AIDUCE, SOVAPE, LA VAPE DU CŒUR, et FIVAPE - https://www.sovape.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/LIVRE-BLANC-Merci-La-Vape-v-digitale-2024.pdf ︎