Starting January 1, Belgium will ban the sale of disposable vapes to protect the health of young people as part of the national tobacco control plan. It is reported by France24.com.
The European Union aims to create a tobacco-free generation by 2040, reducing the number of smokers in the bloc’s 27 countries from about 25 percent now to less than five percent of the total.
Some EU countries are planning to postpone this deadline.
Vapes are often advertised as less harmful than smoking traditional tobacco products.
They appeal to young users with their colorful packaging and the promise of appetizing flavor, as well as the advantage of avoiding the unpleasant smell of smoke on their fingers.
But since e-cigarettes still contain nicotine, which is highly addictive, critics fear that they could be a potential step toward more traditional tobacco products.
“The problem is that young people are starting to use vapes without knowing about the nicotine content, and nicotine is addictive,” said Nora Melard, spokesperson for the Alliance for a Tobacco-Free Society in Belgium.
“We have young people who say they wake up at night to take a puff,” she told AFP. “It’s very disturbing.”
Belgium boasts that it has responded quickly to the dangers posed by disposable e-cigarettes, which appeared on the market more than five years ago.
In 2021, the federal government submitted a proposal to the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, to ban disposable vapes.
The Commission, which must approve any sales ban, gave Belgium the green light in March 2024, paving the way for the national law to come into force.
France has received EU authorization for a similar ban.
Once enacted, the French law will prohibit the production, sale, and free offer of vapes with a fine of 100,000 euros ($104,000) for any violations.
“Ecological catastrophe”
Health authorities in France and Belgium say that chronic nicotine use is particularly harmful to the brains of adolescents and can lead to the use of other drugs.
A study conducted in the EU in 2023 found that most e-cigarette users opted for rechargeable vapes, but disposable versions were popular among young people aged 15 to 24.
Easy to use and advertised everywhere on social media, disposable vapes are also attractive for their low price.
For five to six euros, one disposable vape is half the price of 20 packs of cigarettes. Some allow up to 9000 puffs, which, according to experts, is equivalent to more than 300 cigarettes.
Many tobacco shops in Brussels are running out of disposable e-cigarettes because refills are not possible.
“I don’t understand why vapes are banned and not tobacco, which is also dangerous,” one young user, Ilias Rathby, told AFP.
Others welcome the ban. “I think it would be good to stop selling it,” said Yona Buyniak in the center of Brussels. “There are many young people who start without even thinking about the consequences.”
Opponents also point to the “environmental disaster” caused by disposable vapes.
In seeking EU approval for the ban, Belgium argued that a plastic disposable vape with a lithium battery is usually thrown away within five days of purchase.
On the contrary, rechargeable versions can work for about six to seven months.