French Health minister Geneviève Darrieussecq wants to ban nicotine pouches, and told Le Parisien that the government would introduce such a measure in the coming weeks.
While the French market for nicotine pouches is relatively small, the Minister claims that French poison centres have received “more and more calls from adolescents” reporting symptoms of nicotine poisoning. Darrieussecq offered no evidence for this claim.
Interestingly, the Minister also cited other problematic products in the interview, including nicotine gum. As a doctor, the Minister should know that nicotine gum is an approved medical product.
Nicotine pouches and snus, both of which are placed between the gum and the cheek to deliver nicotine orally, have been credited with keeping smoking rates, and rates of smoking related disease and mortality, far lower in Sweden than in the rest of the European Union.
The Minister’s proposal flies in the face of advice from the French Parliamentary Office for Scientific Evaluation (OPECST), which recommended in a report from September last year that pouches be subject to their own regulatory regime rather than banned. The report also made clear the value of harm reduction (our translation):
“If cessation is to be the goal for all smokers [the government should] adopt a harm reduction approach for smokers who cannot or do not wish to use traditional nicotine treatments”
Tomas Tobé, head of the Swedish Moderate party’s delegation to the European Parliament, said:
“We have in Sweden managed to reduce tobacco-related smoking, and as long as we hold the view that adults should be able to use nicotine products themselves, this is a much better alternative. And I think there is a certain degree of hypocrisy from both Belgium and France in not wanting to advance with much regulation around cigarette smoking but rather go after [pouches].”
Sweden has smoking rates of 8%, according to the latest EU wide data, while French smoking rates stand at 27%, above the EU average of 24%.
