India officially bans E-cigarettes
In the Union Cabinet on Wednesday, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the council gave approval to the ban of sales, production, import and distribution of Electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes. Ban has been made on e-Cigarettes as they cause health problems in people, especially among the youth. Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also justified the ban by citing a report of US, which represented the huge contribution of youth in the hike of e-cigarette sales.
E-cigarettes do not burn tobacco, but they have a heating element to vaporize liquid nicotine. This is sold in the name of a product which is less harmful than cigarettes and a product which help in reducing smoking habit.
“There are over 400 brands of e-cigarettes, none of which are manufactured in India and they come in 150 different flavours. Reports say that there are people getting into these habits as it seems cool to many” said the Finance minister.
Health ministry paper on e-cigarettes says that “Available scientific evidence indicated that e-cigarettes and similar technologies that encourage tobacco are hazardous for an active as well as passive user. Pure nicotine, the main ingredient of e-cigarettes, and its chemical derivatives in extracted chemical form are highly addictive and poisonous and have a potential to cause death even in small quantities.”
In India, tobacco related issues lead to a striking 900,000 deaths every year and still the number of cigarette users increase day by day. The current statistics shows a terrifying result of 106 million users of these products country wide. India tails China in the worldwide ranking of “Most Smoking countries”, making it an open and wide market for companies like Philip Morris and Juul.
This ban on the e-cigarette, made by India is similar to that of New York (The second state to implement e-cigarette ban) and Michigan (The first US state to declare a complete ban on flavoured e-cigarette products). The ban is still to be implemented in Michigan. US President Donald Trump’s administration announced that there will soon be a ban on e-cigarettes to stem a hiking number of youth users.
The current ban can be extended to a complete ban in vaping if the current smokers shift to other tobacco products in future, said the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).
Edited by: The World Women News team
