For some time now in Spain you can purchase a new product related to tobacco: nicotine sachets. In appearance, they are nothing like conventional cigarettes; rather, they may look like chewing gum, with similar aromas and flavors, although with a very different texture. They are bags filled with synthetic nicotine that are placed in the mouth, between the gum and the lip, and the substance is released. The Ministry of Health, in the reform of the royal decree that regulates certain aspects related to the manufacture, presentation and marketing of tobacco products and related products in which it works, intends to regulate them by limiting the maximum doses to 0.99 mg per sachet. However, pulmonologists believe that this measure is insufficient and demand that Mónica García take a tougher line against these products.
“Nicotine pouches are not only addictive, they are also toxic to health,” explains María Isabel Cristóbal, coordinator of the smoking area of the Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (Separ). The scientific society, together with the Autonomous Forum on Smoking (which includes regional societies of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery of Spain) and the Spanish Federation of Associations of Allergic Patients and Respiratory Diseases (Fenaer) ask the ministry to completely prohibit this product . They warn that there are studies that link its consumption with cases of nicotine poisoning. Furthermore, they say, the presence of substances with carcinogenic and inflammatory capacity has been detected in these products. “It is a toxic product,” says Cristóbal.
But the concern of pulmonologists also lies in the nicotine addiction that this product can generate in younger people. “One can start consuming this type of product thinking that it is harmless but it creates addiction to nicotine and generally leads to dual consumption (of traditional tobacco and one of the new derived products at the same time)”, laments María Isabel Cristóbal, which emphasizes that this already happens with other new forms of smoking such as vapes. «The same thing can happen with nicotine pouches. The smoker is addicted to nicotine and the vehicle does not matter. It can be a conventional cigarette, electronic cigarette or a bag.
The Separ spokesperson also regrets the attractiveness of these products, with colors and flavors that can attract the consumer’s attention, as well as their accessibility. “The other day I saw them at the counter of a gas station,” he says. Plain packaging for all these products, Cristóbal assures, would be a good way to discourage their consumption. But it also asks Health for greater ambition and speed to carry out measures to control the sale of vapes or the expansion of smoke-free spaces: “All measures aimed at protecting public health are urgent.”
The Nofumadores organization has also demanded that Mónica García’s department speed up one of the measures announced by the minister: the ban on single-use vapes. Belgium has recently become the first country in the European Union to veto the sale of these devices. France is also working on it and the United Kingdom will launch the ban, predictably, in the second half of the year.
disposable vapers
disposable vapers
“We ask for a specific date to end the marketing of disposable vapes in our country,” says Raquel Fernández Megina, president of Nofumadores. org, which emphasizes that in addition to health, these devices also cause damage to the environment. Recently, the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla, assured that the prohibition of these products had not been included in the draft royal decree on which his department is working because, after analyzing it in depth, they observed that it needed the status of law, for what they intend to include in the reform of the anti-smoking law that they are preparing.
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