France has recently prohibited nicotine pouches. Jean-François Etter discusses what prohibition could mean for consumers, quality control, illicit markets and criminal groups and why the demand for nicotine pouches may not simply disappear.
Transcription:
00:00 - 00:14
[Brent Stafford]
Jean-François, can you explain for us, that are in North America, what's happening in France when it comes to nicotine pouches? Are they actually illegal? Could you get thrown in jail for having a nicotine pouch?
00:14 - 02:19
[Jean-François Etter]
Yes, it's illegal. It's very recent. There was a panic around nicotine pouches and they prohibited them. It's been prohibited recently. So, yes, it's irrational. They were warned about the negative consequences, but they proceeded anyway. And I think this is not good policy. It's perhaps popular with a part of the electorate, but not with everybody. The consequences of this prohibition are well known. Demand is not going to disappear. The black market is going to replace the official market, which means that there's no quality control anymore. Perhaps dangerous ingredients will be found in these illicit products. and this only gives the market to criminal groups, reinforces their influence. I think there are other possibilities than banning products. All the traditional measures all the traditional measures to control product from education to mass media campaigns to the control of the concentration of nicotine in the pouches, monitoring the markets to understand the behaviors, the products, the marketing strategies, and intervening at each step of the marketing and diffusion process. not using the nuclear option of prohibiting a product, it doesn't work, unfortunately. It may work, but it requires strong enforcement. And this also falls more heavily on the most vulnerable people.
02:21 - 02:29
[Brent Stafford]
Yeah, I mean, in my mind, it undermines the legitimacy of a government when they're making prohibitions like that.
02:30 - 03:08
[Jean-François Etter]
Exactly. And this is a serious issue because it extends beyond nicotine. I mean, there's an Ebola outbreak. We don't know whether it's going to come here or not with a 50% mortality rate. And WHO is discrediting itself in the field of nicotine with these extreme positions. And this has serious consequences. If people don't trust WHO, then they may not trust it either in other fields of public health. So this is a serious issue, and it has consequences.