A tough World No Tobacco Day
Without warning, Health Minister Catherine Vautrin has announced a limit on flavors and nicotine levels in e-liquids from 2026. Already in turmoil over the CNCT's media campaign on 6-methyl-nicotine, vape professionals were stunned.
Flavors and nicotine are essential factors in the effectiveness of vape. The scientific evidence is compelling. Restricting flavors or nicotine would be tantamount to sabotaging the best cessation aid currently available. Consult the media watch below: doctors and associations have reacted in droves, including Aiduce, La Vape du Cœur, Fédération Addiction, a "bad idea" for Dr Marion Adler, and Pr. Dautzenberg speaks of a "gift to the tobacco industry".
In a press release1 for World No-Tobacco Day, the Société Francophone de Tabacologie, representing specialist doctors working in the field, denounces the fact that varenicline is no longer available, bupropion is not reimbursed, cytisine is prohibited and there are problems with stock-outs of nicotine substitutes, preventing their patients from receiving proper treatment. Faced with the "suffering of smokers" and the sharp deterioration in the availability of aid tools in recent years, tobacco specialists feel helpless.
Doctors are unhappy. Vape professionals are unhappy. While budgets earmarked for the fight against smoking are only used for moralizing campaigns - smoking is bad, yes, we know! - all those who directly and concretely help smokers on a daily basis feel forgotten or scorned.
Because yes, we do help smokers quit - it's our job, our mission, our passion. "We immediately reacted to Santé Publique France's announcement that the number of daily smokers was falling. We claim responsibility for this decline. The correlations are clear, and they're being verified all over the world: when vape develops and public authorities encourage it, smoking plummets.
Yes, we want to convert as many smokers as possible, making industry and commerce, creating value and local employment. We're not ashamed, we're proud!
So we're going to keep fighting to defend vape and our vision of how it should be designed, manufactured and advised. As I said during my face-to-face meeting with the president of the CNCT on the set of France Info TV's 11-13, our products are highly regulated, they contain no poison, and we have no interest in taking the slightest risk on their quality.
Adult smoking is the number one influencing factor for young people. For a "tobacco-free generation", the most effective measure is to help smokers quit, now.
In the face of attacks and inconsistencies, we remain fully mobilized. Join us, become a member of FIVAPE. And if you're already a member, convince your colleagues to join us, and spread our news as widely as possible.
You can count on us to defend vape and make the voice of professionals independent of the tobacco industry heard.
See you soon,
Jean MOIROUD
President of FIVAPE
