E-cigarette outlets plummet in Spain

The number of shops selling electronic cigarettes in Spain has fallen by 90 percent during the past 12 months, according to a story in The Local quoting the country’s electronic cigarette industry association, ANCE.

A year ago there were about 3,000 shops selling electronic cigarettes in Spain but now there are about 300.

“There has been a very intense attack by pharmaceutical companies which has generated bad publicity in the media,” ANCE vice president, Alejandro Rodríguez, was said to have told Spain’s El Confidencial newspaper.

The Local said that the ANCE comments had followed a leak of e-mails from GlaxoSmithKline showing that the company had been lobbying for tougher regulation of electronic cigarettes.

According to the leaked emails, the company wants the products to be regulated as medicines; so that they would have to compete with products such as nicotine gum.

Spain does not have such regulations but it has banned the use of electronic cigarettes in public places such as hospitals and schools.

Rodríguez conceded that part of the problem was down to the fact that too many shops had opened in Spain in too short a period. Many of the staff had been inexperienced and didn’t know how to advise their clients, he said.