Tobacco-free month: is the electronic cigarette a good solution to quit smoking?

A month without cigarettes. This is the challenge launched every beginning of November for a decade to encourage smokers to quit cigarettes, on the occasion of tobacco-free month which begins this Friday, November 1 in France. According to the official website (new window)more than 100,000 people have already registered to participate in the 2024 edition. All will have to implement techniques to avoid resorting to tobacco. Are electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, preferred?

Not really recommended by the authorities…

For the authorities, the use of an electronic cigarette to reduce or stop tobacco consumption is not among the recommendations. “Vaping products, with or without nicotine, are not health products”insists the Ministry of Health, in a note published in October 2022 (new window). According to him, “these products or their emissions may contain toxic or potentially toxic substances and their long-term health effects are insufficiently known”he warns. “Moreover, currently available data are inconclusive regarding the effectiveness of vaping products as a smoking cessation tool.”

Therefore, the authorities favor “care by a health professional” as well as “the implementation of drug treatment” to try to stop smoking, rather than electronic cigarettes. “Nicotinic replacement treatments have a favorable benefit-risk ratio in smoking cessation, shown by clinical trials”assures the ministry. Vaping products do not contain “no sufficient scientific evidence to confirm that they constitute an aid to stopping tobacco consumption”.

…but less harmful than tobacco

Not everyone is so affirmative. In its frequently asked questions, the Tabac info service site (new window)which depends on Public Health France, indicates that “the electronic cigarette can indeed be considered as an aid to stopping or reducing tobacco consumption”…without considering that it is a miracle recipe. “Used alone, it is much less dangerous than the classic cigarette, because the vaper does not inhale the toxic substances of tobacco”he notes.

For Professor Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health in Geneva (Switzerland), the official position on electronic cigarettes must be reviewed. “She arrived almost 20 years ago”he argues to TF1info. “Several health experts, including certain tobacco specialists, share a certain reluctance maintained by the World Health Organization, and this does not help to change policy, nor to encourage smokers to quit cigarettes”he regrets. “The result of this delay, particularly in France, is the continuation of smoking at a very worrying level.”

The real enemy is tobacco combustion, not nicotine.

Pr. Antoine Flahault at TF1info

According to him, “it is urgent to realize that the electronic cigarette and with it other non-combustion tobacco devices, are allies and not enemies of public policies in the fight against smoking.. “The real enemy is tobacco combustion and not nicotine”insists Professor Flahault, who nevertheless recalls that it is a “addictive product, therefore not recommended for non-smokers.”

“North American and European data show that electronic cigarettes, wherever they are used and promoted, effectively replace cigarette consumption, including among young people”he continues. “After 20 years of hindsight, we have no particular concerns in terms of the risks associated with electronic cigarettes. Let’s not fight the wrong battle.”

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The Ministry of Health also admits this in its note, despite its reluctance: “as a freely available product for adults, vaping products can be used, by individual choice, outside of or in addition to support to stop smoking as part of the healthcare system”we can read there. “The advantage is above all to reduce exposure to the many toxic and carcinogenic substances in tobacco smoke.”