Sponsored session -  Denormalizing tobacco and nicotine products through environmental leverage: The experience of ACT’s awareness and advocacy campaigns

The aim of this session is to present how the environmental leverage in awareness and advocacy campaigns can facilitate the process of denormalization of tobacco and nicotine products. To illustrate the tools that can be mobilized, this session aims to present the mechanisms that have been put in place by ACT – Alliance Contre le Tabac especially to combat a new product developed by the tobacco industry: "Puff bars". Puff bars are disposable e-cigarettes, available in a wide variety of sweet and fruity flavours (e.g. marshmallow), with a packaging that is particularly attractive to young people. The rapid spread of the use of puffs among teenagers, especially in secondary schools, despite the ban on sales of this product to minors in France raises fears of an epidemic of nicotine addiction. To address this new concern, our association has developed three major complementary lines of action on the subject through an environmental perspective (research and studies, advocacy and communication through awareness campaigns) which will be presented in the session.First, in 2023, ACT published the first survey of French teenagers aged 13 to 16 on their perception and use of these disposable flavoured e-cigarettes, in conjunction with BVA, an international research group. This survey confirmed the feeling of a sudden craze for these products among very young teenagers: 15% of them have already tested puff bars and 10% say they have already bought them.This study enabled us to promote advocacy actions with French decision-makers, by supporting the introduction of a cross-party bill to ban these disposable electronic cigarettes. Ms. Francesca Pasquini, former member of the French Parliament, will present the successful process of collaboration with civil society that led to the adoption in 2024 of the ban on disposable e-cigarettes in France. The environment was also an essential lever for mobilizing civil society more broadly in this battle, which is why we launched a public awareness campaign in June 2023 alongside the environmental association Surfrider Foundation, showing that tobacco and new nicotine products are ecotoxic bombs for our planet.