Introduction: Raising taxes is one of the most cost-effective measures to reduce tobacco use. France has a unique profile: it has high tobacco use prevalence and a state monopoly on tobacco sales for tobacconists who are both agents of the customs administration and a recognised tobacco industry (TI) front group. In this paper, we investigate the lobbying tactics and arguments against tobacco taxation mobilised by the TI and tobacconists in France.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWHY BAN CIGARETTE FILTERS? Tobacco consumption in the form of cigarettes is still perceived as being so ordinary that its result, the production of cigarette ends and their disposal, has long been invisible and overlooked. A cigarette end is composed of two parts: a remnant of unsmoked tobacco and a single-use plastic filter made of cellulose acetate. These two components are saturated with the many toxic products generated by cigarette combustion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Tax increases are the most effective but still the least-used tobacco control measure. The tobacco industry (TI) employs lobbying strategies to oppose the implementation of tax policies on its products. Over the past two decades, French tobacco tax policies have been characterized by a relative inconsistency.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF"Tobacco industry strategies to attract new and young smokers .Tobacco consumption, the paradigm of an industrial pandemic, has been declining in recent years around the world, following implementation of the recommendations of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). To survive, the four transnational companies that control the market must adapt their strategy, which they do by shifting from the tobacco trade to the wider nicotine trade through the promotion of new products (electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNicotine industry: harm reduction, an exclusively financial objective The knowledge of tobacco smoking health effects, combined with the implementation of measures efficient on its use, leads to tobacco sale reduction with tobacco industry financial losses that, in order to survive, has to recruit new young consumers, and maintain current smokers' use. The industry promotes a new way for tobacco use that, according to it, would reduce harm: heat-not-burn tobacco. But, there is currently no independent scientific proof for such a harm reduction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPreventing tobacco sales to minors. Since 2009, selling tobacco products in France to minors less than 18 years of age is forbidden by law, but this law is poorly enforced even though tobacco use mainly begins at adolescence. The aim of this study was to identify measures implemented by foreign countries leading to a better enforcement of tobacco sale ban to minors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFrench governments only very recently introduced comprehensive tobacco control policies including several measures recommended by WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, leading to a speeding-up of tobacco smoking decrease, but still with a high current level of use. In the meantime, research confirms that nicotine is highly addictive, that smoking just a cigarette a day is highly detrimental for health, and that health professionals are efficient in helping smokers to give up. These measures are such diverse as tobacco taxes increases, introducing plain packs, promoting November as month without tobacco, getting tobacco cessation medications paid for by health insurances, implementing a comprehensive advertising ban of tobacco products in retailor shops, and increasing protection of public health policies from tobacco industry intrusion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The cigarette, like the cigarette pack, is used by tobacco companies as a promotional tool. We explore how the cigarette could potentially be used as a dissuasive tool.
Methods: An online survey was conducted with 15-30-year-old smokers and nonsmokers (N = 998) in France to explore their perceptions of a plain cigarette (gray with no brand name) and three branded cigarettes (regular, slim, pink).
Background: We explored, for the first time, young adult roll-your-own smokers' response to using plain packaging in real-world settings.
Methods: Naturalistic research was employed, where 133 French young adult smokers (18-25 years of age) used plain roll-your-own packs for 10 days; the plain packs they were provided with contained their usual brand of rolling tobacco and displayed the name of their usual brand. Participants were recruited in five cities in France (Paris, Marseille, Metz, Nantes, Toulouse) and completed two questionnaires to measure their response to their own branded packs and the plain packs.
Background: In the face of comprehensive bans on the marketing of tobacco products, packaging has become an increasingly important promotional tool for the tobacco industry. A ban on the use of branding on tobacco packaging, known as 'plain' packaging, has emerged as a promising regulatory strategy. The current study sought to examine perceptions of cigarette packaging among adults in France.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe optimal way to display constituent levels (e.g. tar) on tobacco packaging has not received adequate attention but has important policy implications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Sports sponsorship is one of the tobacco industry's main strategies to recruit new smokers among teenagers and young adults.
Methods: Monitoring Motor sports illicit broadcasting based on six channels in 2005; Dakar Rally (DR) and China Grand Prix impact evaluated with a one on one questionnaire administered on 12-24-year-old males and females (n = 805).
Results: 75,000 TV tobacco sponsoring appearances (90 h) were observed, total value: euro200.