The Health war against those who want smoking to be something "cool": this is how he wants to ban the disposable electronic cigarette

In December 2019, the World Health Organization announced it with great fanfare “fewer and fewer people in the world light up a cigarette every day.” According to the report of Prevalence of tobacco consumption 2000-2025the figure had fallen in 2018 thanks to the fact that women; but in 2020 there would also be fewer men smoking than the previous year.

Was a turning point. The result of an ambitious socio-health and cultural program that had achieved that, In the words of Javier PadillaSecretary of State for Health, smoking will be seen as something “aging”.

Or so we thought.

Tobacco strikes again. However, a couple of months ago, the VI AEGON health and lifestyle study said that That trend was reversing. (at least in Spain). The number of smokers in our country had increased from 23.2% in 2022 to 41% in 2023.

There are many causes behind this, but the Ministry of Health is clear that vapers and electronic cigarettes “have made smoking attractive to young people again.” For the Ministry they are “the front door of young people in the habit of smoking“and they will act accordingly.

If we go to the data, the idea makes sense. On the one hand, Spain is the country in Europe in which young people They start smoking earlier. On the other, according to the Spanish Society of Family Medicine 20.8% of adolescents vape or use electronic cigarettes regularly.

Hence the insistence of the Secretary of State for Health to “address anti-smoking policies as policies for children and youth”

What is the Ministry of Health going to do? On the Paseo del Prado they finalize the details of the modification of the Royal Decree 579/2017 which, in addition to expanding smoke-free areas (to terraces or places where children are present), “will include the prohibition of disposable electronic cigarettes, the elimination of flavorings and flavorings in this type of devices and will legislate the generic packaging of the cigarette packs” (to make them less attractive).

An open war against tobacco companies. None of this is new to the industry. In May 2024, Padilla himself said that “in the same way that we would not trust the Camorra to solve the mafia problem in Italy, we should not trust the tobacco industry to solve the problems of smoking for our population.”

Padilla defended the need of “smoke-free spaces and make environmental exposure less […] but we also need to equate the regulation of new forms of tobacco and related products with the regulation of existing ones.” “Today, no one smokes a Ducados ‘to look cool’, but a vaper does,” he concluded.

And it seems that he has complied. If all goes well, the decree would enter the first half of 2025.

Image | Claudia Ramirez

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