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Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director)
On RTL, Sunday May 28, the Minister of Health François Braun mentioned the possibility of framing the electronic cigarette as a smoking cessation tool. As such, its reimbursement could be considered.
Can turning to a vaper rather than lighting a cigarette help stop a tobacco addiction? The question is currently being debated, especially since the long-term toxicity of electronic cigarettes is still under study. But it is clear that vaping considerably reduces smoking among users, which amounts to facilitating withdrawal and reducing addiction. It is in this idea that the François Braun Minister of Health indicated on Sunday to consider his prescription and his next reimbursement.
Electronic cigarettes reimbursed, but not puffs
The project, which could be adopted from the start of the school year, would make it possible to open up to pharmacists in particular the prescription of electronic cigarettes used as nicotine substitutes, on the same model as patches. In the Minister’s words, this decision will only concern “Nicotine substitutes with of the electronic cigarettes that allow you to gradually reduce your nicotine consumption and stop”.
On the other hand, these prescriptions will completely exclude puffs, these disposable electronic cigarettes with various tastes popular with young people, which do not allow “nothing out of smoking”, and on the contrary encourage smoking. Deputies also hope to have a vote banning puffs at the start of the school year.
A tool that must be part of a framed weaning strategy
It would therefore be a question of using the electronic cigarette in order to reduce or even stop smoking without returning to it.
“When we actually talk about weaning, there is a beginning, a middle, an end, which can make it possible to get out of nicotine for good. But you have to get out of the habit of this gesture in order to be able to stop definitively, and especially if we want to wean ourselves, we must not be a vape-smoker, that is to say, smoke and use (electronic) cigarettes at the same time” confirms Loïc Josserand, pulmonologist, president of the Alliance against tobacco on France Info.
The framework is also at the heart of the success of this proposal for Dr. Gérald Kierzek, medical director of Doctissimo:
“The important thing is that the electronic cigarette as a smoking cessation tool should not be considered in the long term, so as not to transform smokers into vapers, or non-smokers into vapers. This decision must therefore be integrated into an overall therapeutic withdrawal strategy, with indications and limits for its use, in the same way as with nicotine patches. As such, its reimbursement can be interesting. If it’s a weaning tool, let’s frame it like other weaning tools.”