A typical e-cigarette advertisement
On Friday (May 31st), France's health minister, Marisol Touraine, decided to establish "the same laws for electronic cigarettes as for regular cigarettes." This means that they will not be allowed in certain public places, the legal age will be 16, and advertising will be prohibited. Many physicians are outraged because there is no medical evidence proving that the electronic cigarettes are even dangerous. The French Office for Tobacco Prevention reported that, "Right now, we don't know enough about the products [in e-cigarettes]...to our knowledge, appropriately made and used, it presents infinitely fewer dangers than [regular] cigarettes." Dr William Lowenstein gave an interview with France 5 on May 16 about the benefits of the e-cigarettes and claims that, "...the benefits of e-cigarettes are undeniable." I was interested in the interview so I was able to find it on youtube and have provided it below. It is all in French but I was able to turn on English captions. The words are directly translated so it is not completely clear. Nonetheless, the point of the interview can still be made out. The article continues to talk about the cigarette and then jumps to "a lucrative market." The e-cigarette raked in 40 million euros in 2012 and is expected to make 100 million in 2013. New laws against e-cigarettes will easily cut these projected numbers down.
It is very easy to see how these new laws will effect the cigarette market. First of all, regular cigarettes have been seeing a huge drop in sales due to these newer, more healthy, e-cigarettes. The regular cigarettes now have a competitor that by far exceeds their quality. I would expect regular cigarette companies to quickly go out of business because the demand is now for e-cigarettes, not regular cigarettes. The e-cigarette companies are simply supplying a better product that regular cigarette companies will not be able to compete with. On the other hand, with the new government regulations, the e-cigarette companies will see a hit in sales in the near future. They will be losing all sales to people under the age of 16, and the demand will decrease because people simply will not be able to smoke everywhere anymore. We have not talked much about advertising in class but it is quite obvious that if there is no advertising, sales will decrease.
The government has recently placed this law but I feel that it will soon change. The medical evidence clearly shows that they are much safer than traditional cigarettes, therefore, they should be treated differently by the law. I would expect this law to be altered in the near future due to medical research and statistical evidence. If the law was to be changed, the e-cigarette companies would continue to see an increase in sales over the next few years.
Article Link: http://www.france24.com/en/20130531-france-trying-kill-e-cigarette-marisol-touraine
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