Latest news with #tobacco
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
QUENTIN LETTS: My friends in France say their country's ban on smoking in public will be ignored with a Gallic shrug. Will we be as defiant when it happens here?
The gendarmerie may be in for a busy summer. It will soon be illegal to smoke outdoors in France, the government having ruled that 'tobacco must disappear where there are children'. The ban will apply anywhere near youngsters, from the ski slopes of La Plagne or Courchevel to the boulevards of Reims and Marseille. Defense de fumer. If you hoped to stroll down Paris's Rue de Verneuil, sucking on a Disque Bleu while striking Serge Gainsbourg poses – sultry Sixties star Serge was seldom seen sans cig – then you have only 29 full days left to do it. From July, it will be illegal to light a cigarette en plein air. Those who disobey will be fined 135 euros (£113).
Emirates 24/7
8 hours ago
- General
- Emirates 24/7
WHO calls for urgent action to ban flavoured tobacco, nicotine products
On World No Tobacco Day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) today launched a new publication and calls on governments to urgently ban all flavours in tobacco and nicotine products, including cigarettes, pouches, hookahs and e-cigarettes, to protect youth from addiction and disease. Flavours like menthol, bubble gum and cotton candy are masking the harshness of tobacco and nicotine products turning toxic products into youth-friendly bait. Flavours not only make it harder to quit but have also been linked to serious lung diseases. Cigarettes, which still kill up to half of their users, also come in flavours or can have flavours added to them. 'Flavours are fuelling a new wave of addiction, and should be banned,' said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO. 'They undermine decades of progress in tobacco control. Without bold action, the global tobacco epidemic, already killing around 8 million people each year, will continue to be driven by addiction dressed up with appealing flavours.' The publication, Flavour accessories in tobacco products enhance attractiveness and appeal, reveals how flavours and accessories like capsule filters and click-on drops are marketed to bypass regulations and hook new users. Currently, over 50 countries ban flavoured tobacco; more than 40 countries ban e-cigarette sales; 5 specifically ban disposables and 7 ban e-cigarette flavours; and flavour accessories remain largely unregulated. Flavours are a leading reason why young people try tobacco and nicotine products. Paired with flashy packaging and social media-driven marketing, they've increased the appeal of nicotine pouches, heated tobacco, and disposable vapes into addictive and harmful products, which aggressively target young people. WHO reiterates that tobacco products, including heated tobacco products, expose users to cancer-causing chemicals and should be strictly regulated. Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.
Daily Mail
14 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Huge call to ban cigarettes in Coles and Woolworths - what you need to know
Anthony Albanese faces a huge call to ban cigarettes from supermarkets in the latest move to clamp down on smoking. Lung Foundation Australia CEO Mark Brooke is calling on the government to bring in new legislation as he branded supermarkets 'irresponsible' for selling cigarettes. 'We need everyone from government to big corporations to put the lung health of Australians ahead of profits from a product that kills 66 Australians daily,' he said. 'Previous news reports have highlighted Coles estimates their cigarette sales each year is enough to kill more than 1,600 Australians and cause tobacco-related medical costs of more than $300 million a year.' It follows a new licensing scheme which is set to take effect across New South Wales from July 1. Aussies may soon no longer be able to buy cigarettes during their weekly grocery shops as restrictions on smoking increase. The new scheme requires all tobacco retailers and wholesalers to have a license to sell tobacco and non-tobacco smoking products in the state. In NSW it is also illegal for any retailers other than a pharmacy to sell any type of vaping good, regardless of its nicotine content. Lung Foundation Australia has urged the federal government to follow suit and introduce legislation that would cover the entire country. 'The federal government can support broader efforts by investigating the health and economic impacts of a generational phase out of tobacco products,' Lung Foundation Australia said. more to come
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Calls for France to follow UK with generational tobacco ban
France recently banned single-use vapes and nicotine pouches as part of its plan to foster a tobacco-free generation. But, as the world marks the annual World No Tobacco Day on Saturday, a group of public health advocates and MPs want to go further – by introducing a generational tobacco ban similar to the UK's. Smoking is no longer as fashionable in France as it was in the days of Serge Gainsbourg chain-smoking Gitanes on TV. Yet it remains the country's leading cause of preventable death, killing around 75,000 people a year. It is also linked to heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes, asthma, dementia and fertility issues. Over the past 30 years, France has cracked down on smoking – banning advertising of tobacco products in 1991, smoking in public places in 2007 and sales to under-18s in 2009, and introducing plain packaging in 2017. These efforts have paid off. According to the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT), the number of regular smokers fell from 40 percent of adults in the mid-2010s to 23 percent in 2023 – although this is still above the EU average. France becomes second European country to ban disposable e-cigarettes Vaping, however, is on the rise, especially among teens, with around 6 percent using e-cigarettes daily. Read more on RFI EnglishRead also:France to ban smoking on beaches and close to schoolsEU moves to ban smoking and vaping in outdoor spacesCigarette butts, the plastic pollution that's hiding in plain sight
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
The country that made smoking sexy is breaking up with cigarettes
PARIS (AP) — Brigitte Bardot lounged barefoot on a Saint-Tropez beach, drawing languorous puffs from her cigarette. Another actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo, swaggered down the Champs-Élysées with smoke curling from his defiant lips, capturing a generation's restless rebellion. In France, cigarettes were never just cigarettes — they were cinematic statements, flirtations and rebellions wrapped in rolling paper. Yet beginning July 1, if Bardot and Belmondo's iconic film scenes were repeated in real life, they would be subject to up to €135 ($153) in fines. After glamorizing tobacco for decades, France is preparing for its most sweeping smoking ban yet. The new restrictions, announced by Health Minister Catherine Vautrin, will outlaw smoking in virtually all outdoor public areas where children may gather, including beaches, parks, gardens, playgrounds, sports venues, school entrances and bus stops. 'Tobacco must disappear where there are children,' Vautrin told French media. The freedom to smoke 'stops where children's right to breathe clean air starts." If Vautrin's law reflects public health priorities, it also signals a deeper cultural shift. Smoking has defined identity, fashion and cinema here for so long that the new measure feels like a quiet French revolution in a country whose relationship with tobacco is famously complex. According to France's League Against Cancer, over 90 percent of French films from 2015 to 2019 featured smoking scenes — more than double the rate in Hollywood productions. Each French movie averaged nearly three minutes of on-screen smoking, effectively the same exposure as six 30-second television ads. Cinema has been particularly influential. Belmondo's rebellious smoker in Jean-Luc Godard 's 'Breathless' became shorthand for youthful defiance worldwide. Bardot's cigarette smoke wafted through 'And God Created Woman,' symbolizing unbridled sensuality. Yet this glamorization has consequences. According to France's public health authorities, around 75,000 people die from tobacco-related illnesses each year. Although smoking rates have dipped recently — fewer than 25% of French adults now smoke daily, a historic low — the habit remains stubbornly embedded, especially among young people and the urban chic. France's relationship with tobacco has long been fraught with contradiction. Air France did not ban smoking on all its flights until 2000, years after major U.S. carriers began phasing it out in the late 1980s and early '90s. The delay reflected a country slower to sever its cultural romance with cigarettes, even at 35,000 feet. Strolling through the stylish streets of Le Marais, the trendiest neighborhood in Paris, reactions to the smoking ban ranged from pragmatic acceptance to nostalgic defiance. 'It's about time. I don't want my kids growing up thinking smoke is romantic,' said Clémence Laurent, a 34-year-old fashion buyer, sipping espresso at a crowded café terrace. 'Sure, Bardot made cigarettes seem glamorous. But Bardot didn't worry about today's warnings on lung cancer.' At a nearby boutique, vintage dealer Luc Baudry, 53, saw the ban as an attack on something essentially French. 'Smoking has always been part of our culture. Take away cigarettes and what do we have left? Kale smoothies?' he scoffed. Across from him, 72-year-old Jeanne Lévy chuckled throatily, her voice deeply etched — she said — by decades of Gauloises. 'I smoked my first cigarette watching Jeanne Moreau,' she confessed, eyes twinkling behind vintage sunglasses. 'It was her voice — smoky, sexy, lived-in. Who didn't want that voice?' Indeed, Jeanne Moreau's gravelly, nicotine-scraped voice transformed tobacco into poetry itself, immortalized in classics such as François Truffaut's 'Jules et Jim.' Smoking acquired an existential glamour that made quitting unimaginable for generations of French smokers. France's new law mirrors broader European trends. Britain, Spain and Sweden have all implemented significant smoking bans in public spaces. Sweden outlawed smoking in outdoor restaurant terraces, bus stops and schoolyards back in 2019. Spain extended its bans to café terraces, spaces still exempt in France—at least for now. In the Paris park Place des Vosges, literature student Thomas Bouchard clutched an electronic cigarette that is still exempt from the new ban and shrugged. 'Maybe vaping's our compromise,' he said, exhaling gently. 'A little less sexy, perhaps. But fewer wrinkles too.'
