Resting on one’s laurels on the topic of smoking is immediately used by the tobacco industry to expand. The obstacles that were imposed on the action of smoking traditional tobacco, implemented in 2005 and 2010 (which placed Spain at the forefront of the fight against smoking in Europe), have become obsolete with the massive incorporation of electronic cigarettes (in all its varieties) driven by the industry with the clear aim of attracting young people, with colorful designs and exotic flavors. This, and the use of (well-paid) social media influencers who make young people believe that vaping is cool, makes it very difficult to achieve the goal of ending smoking by 2040, as Europe set out to do.
Precisely the young people focused the interventions of the IX European Conference on Tobacco or Health, because the expansion of vaporizers endangers all the progress achieved against smoking, and binds the new generations to this addiction. A fact in Spain: more than half of minors between the ages of 14 and 18 have vaped, figures from 2019 that have already been exceeded. Another example: in the United States the use of these products increased from 1.5% in 2011 to 78% in 2018 among students between 13 and 18 years old.
In the face of this evidence, measures are imposed. The first, dictated by the EU last year, put limits on the industry when marketing these products, with or without nicotine. In this sense, Spain is working on a royal decree to improve labeling and packaging “through the introduction of generic packaging, in addition to traceability and security measures” and improvements in “the appropriate cataloging of emerging tobacco products and related to tobacco”. And, especially relevant, to ban additives and components, especially the most visible to consumers, according to Sanitat.
This category includes flavors, points out Francisco RodrÃguez Lozado, former president of the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP), who has been fighting for years (like all health professionals and scientists) to have them banned because of the attraction that they generate teenagers and young people. The flavor (from watermelon to vanilla, through mentholated, apple or strawberry) makes young people believe that they are risk-free. This ban and the new labeling rules should be approved next summer.
But what all the European participants agree on, including the Spanish (led by Queen LetÃcia), is that these products must be taxed. Raising the price is the most effective weapon against smoking, especially among young people.
But Spain does not seem to be going along this line at the moment (although it already provided for it in the Comprehensive Plan against Smoking, which has been shelved by the Government of Pedro Sánchez). And that the Ministry of Health and the Institute of Fiscal Studies endorse imposing a rate of 35.6%, which would amount to almost 35 million euros in public coffers, on electronic cigarettes (the liquid that is uses and, in addition, nicotine), as explained by Marta Trapero-Beltrán, from the International University of Catalonia. Currently, these products are tax-free except for 21% VAT. Europe is working on a new directive on this issue which, for the time being, has been put on hold. “We hope that Spain (in July it chairs the Council of the EU) will promote it”, said Lilia Olefir, from the Smoke Free Partnership.
