BRUSSELS: Belgium will ban the sale of disposable electronic cigarettes as of Jan. 1 on health and environmental grounds in a groundbreaking move for European Union nations.
Health minister Frank Vandenbroucke said the inexpensive e-cigarettes had turned into a health threat since they are an easy way for teenagers to be drawn into smoking and get hooked on nicotine.
“Disposable e-cigarettes is a new product simply designed to attract new consumers,” he said in an interview.
“E-cigarettes often contain nicotine. Nicotine makes you addicted to nicotine. Nicotine is bad for your health. These are fact,” Vandenbroucke added.
Because they are disposable, the plastic, battery and circuits are a burden on the environment. On top of that, “they create hazardous waste chemicals still present in what people throw away,” Vandenbroucke said.
The health minister said he also targeted the disposable e-cigarettes because reusable ones could be a tool to help people quit smoking if they cannot find another way.
Australia outlawed the sale of ” vapes” outside pharmacies earlier this year in some of the world’s toughest restrictions on electronic cigarettes. Now Belgium is leading the EU drive.
“We are the first country in Europe to do so,” Vandenbroucke said.
He wants tougher tobacco measures in the 27-nation bloc.
“We are really calling on the European Commission to come forward now with new initiatives to update, to modernize, the tobacco legislation,” he said.
There is understanding about Belgium’s decision, even in some shops selling electronic cigarettes, and especially on the environmental issue.
Once the cigarette is empty, “the battery is still working. That’s what is terrible, is that you could recharge it, but you have no way of recharging it,” said Steven Pomeranc, owner of the Brussels Vapotheque shop. “So you can imagine the level of pollution it creates.”
A ban usually means a financial loss to the industry, but Pomeranc said he thinks it will not hurt too much.
“We have a lot of alternative solutions which are also very easy to use,” he said. “Like this pod system, which are pre-filled with liquid, which can just be clipped into the rechargeable e-cigarette. So we will simply have a shift of clients toward this new system.”
Belgium will ban sales of disposable e-cigarettes in a first for the EU
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Belgium will ban sales of disposable e-cigarettes in a first for the EU
- The inexpensive e-cigarettes had turned into a health threat since they are an easy way for teenagers to be drawn into smoking and get hooked on nicotine
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
