The government bans Sniffy in France

The government announced the next ban on Sniffy, the white energizing powder sold on the internet and in tobacco shops, which had provoked unanimous indignation from political leaders and health stakeholders.

On Wednesday July 24, Catherine Vautrin, Minister of Health, Labor and Solidarity, announced that she had signed a decree allowing the ban on this product. The latter should be published in the coming days in the Official Journal[1].

A ban wanted by the public authorities since the launch of the product

Reported at the end of May on the French market, this energizing white powder is sold in one-gram capsules, to be consumed nasally using a small straw. Directly referring to the consumption of cocaine, but essentially composed of legal energizing products such as taurine or caffeine, this new product has until now benefited from a legal loophole. Due to the wide media coverage of which it had been the subject, the Sniffy had however aroused strong indignation, in particular from Catherine Vautrin and Frédéric Valletoux, Minister Delegate in charge of Health and Prevention, who had all both committed to banning the marketing of this product as quickly as possible.

This situation echoes the marketing of nicotine sachets, also sold in different flavors and available in a growing number of tobacco shops. However, as the National Committee against Tobacco pointed out, the marketing of nicotine sachets is in principle illegal in France.

Flavors, age verification: a strategy for targeting adolescents

Although the sale of this powder to minors is prohibited, everything indicates that the manufacturer primarily targets adolescents. In a strategy similar to that of manufacturers of disposable electronic cigarettes, the product is available in different sweet and fruity flavors. Above all, no rigorous age verification is carried out by the platform, since the Internet user is simply asked to enter their date of birth to access the site. On its home page, the site offers a delivery service for its products, promising “fast and discreet shipping”, which may call into question the manufacturer's desire to reserve its product for adults.

Faced with controversy, Sniffy backpedals

Faced with the controversy, Sniffy published a press release on its website in June, denying that it had sought to evoke an “alleged incitement to cocaine consumption”. According to the manufacturer, the mode of consumption by “inhalation” had the sole objective of accentuating “the speed of the energizing effect of the product”. Since then, the platform has informed Internet users that the product should only be consumed sublingually, or orally, by diluting the product with water. Although the manufacturer denies it, the parallel with cocaine consumption remains obvious, through the name and attributes of the product, a “euphoric” white powder sold with a straw. The allusion to taking cocaine was also quite directly assumed by the old slogan of the product: “A white powder that you inhale through your nose? Although this may suggest forbidden pleasure, it is completely within the law.”

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FT

[1] The world, Government bans Sniffy, an energizing powder to inhale through the nose, 07/25/2024, (accessed 07/26/2024)