Widely popular among young people for their dizzying variety of flavours, including apple, watermelon and cola, the time for disposable e-cigarettes is over in Belgium, the first EU country to ban them.
From January 1, the sale of single-use vaporizers will be banned in Belgium, in a bid to protect the health of young people under a national anti-tobacco plan.
The European Union aims to achieve a tobacco-free generation by 2040, reducing the 27-nation bloc’s smoking population from around 25 percent today to less than five percent of the total.
Some EU countries plan to bring that deadline forward.
Vaporizers are often promoted as less harmful than smoking traditional tobacco products.
They attract younger users with their colorful packaging, the promise of delicious flavors and the advantage of avoiding that unpleasant smell of smoke on your fingers.
But because e-cigarettes still contain nicotine, which is highly addictive, critics fear they could be a potential stepping stone to more traditional tobacco products.
“The problem is that young people start using vaporizers without always knowing their 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 drag,” he said. AFP.
“It’s very worrying.” Belgium boasts of having reacted quickly to the dangers posed by disposable e-cigarettes, which hit the market more than five years ago.
In 2021, the federal government submitted a proposal to the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, to ban single-use vaporizers.
The commission, which must give its approval to any sales ban, gave the green light to Belgium in March 2024, paving the way for a national law to come into force.
France has won EU acceptance for a similar ban.
Once enacted, the French law will prohibit the production, sale and free offering of vaporizers, with a fine of 100,000 euros ($104,000) for any violation.
‘Ecological disaster’
Health authorities in France and Belgium say chronic nicotine use is especially harmful to the teenage brain and could encourage the use of other drugs.
A 2023 EU study found that most e-cigarette users opted for a rechargeable vaporizer, but single-use versions were popular among 15- to 24-year-olds.
Easy to use and advertised everywhere on social media, disposable vaporizers are also attractive for their low cost.
For five or six euros, a single-use vaporizer costs half as much as a pack of 20 cigarettes. Some allow up to 9,000 puffs, the equivalent of more than 300 cigarettes, according to experts.
Many tobacco shops in Brussels are running out of single-use electronic cigarettes, as their renewal is impossible.
“I don’t understand why vaporizers are banned and not tobacco, which is also dangerous,” said a young user, Ilias Ratbi. AFP.
Others applaud the ban. “I think it’s good to stop selling it,” said Yona Bujniak in central Brussels. “There are many young people who start without necessarily thinking about the consequences.”
Opponents also point to the “ecological disaster” caused by disposable vaporizers.
In seeking EU approval for its ban, Belgium argued that the single-use plastic vaporizer with its lithium battery is usually thrown away within five days of purchase.
In contrast, rechargeable versions can last between six and seven months.
