The Union Health Ministry has put the draft bill that will replace the ordinance issued last month to ban e-cigarettes, on its website inviting comments from the public. The ministry plans to introduce the Bill in the forthcoming session of Parliament. The government had issued an ordinance to ban e-cigarettes, September 18, making the manufacturing, production, import, export, distribution, transport, sale, storage or advertisements of such alternative smoking devices a cognizable offence, attracting jail term and fine.
Nip the problem in the bud
In India, the common cause of cancer among men is lung cancer. And the most common cause of lung cancer is smoking. No amount of awareness against the harmful effects of smoking has helped curb it. So why continue the work at the grassroots level and not just address the problem at its core itself? It’s better if e-cigarettes are not available in India in the first place.
Cancer not only affects the patient but also the family— emotionally and financially. Sometimes families stop the education of their children to pay for the expensive treatment.
Any type of smoke can damage your lungs and cause cancer. Our lungs cannot handle any kind of smoke. Even smoke from the wood used for cooking can cause cancer.
Anything that is harmful can be banned. Let’s say 90 per cent of the smokers use normal cigarettes, at least the ban will result in 10 percent of the population not smoking which, I think, is a win-win situation.
E-cigarettes are more popular among the youth. The younger generation and college going students are of the view that e-cigarettes are safe. But it is not so. So, we will be safeguarding the youth through this ban. The government’s proposal will only benefit people and won’t harm anyone. I would also support a ban on normal cigarettes.
Dr Sampat Dash, Consultant Pulmonology, Ashwini Hospital
Harm reduction is the real issue
The real issue at hand is harm reduction. Around 39.5 lakh people die every year due to smoking. It is a huge problem indeed. But the government’s stated way of dealing with it is to eliminate tobacco use. The current rate at which the tobacco use is declining, it may take decades to completely curb smoking. And if so many people are dying each year, and we are planning to achieve elimination, then it also means we are ready to sacrifice that many people. That’s the government strategy. Even if there are 12 crore smokers in the country, this may not be the correct way. We need to give people more options to gradually wean them off smoking. It is easier to make people switch to a less harmful form of the habit than to moralise and tell them to stop altogether.
Vaping is a considerably safer and less harmful alternative of smoking. It’s a question of reducing harm to the smokers to a point where they don’t suffer the side effects of the habit. But the govt doesn’t see ‘harm reduction’ as a strategy when it comes to tobacco control. There are already 10 lakh vapers in the country and they will be forced to go back to smoking if the ban is implemented.
And that will be a huge public health loss. In the US and UK, where vaping has taken off, smoking has fallen to historic lows. Despite all the brouhaha in the US with respect to vaping related illness, the country now has the lowest numbers of smokers across its population. UK now has the second lowest number of smokers and is on track to beat smoking by 2030.
If we go ahead with the ban on vaping, we will be going in the exact opposite direction. By taking away the option of a less harmful alternative from them, we will also be perpetuating smoking in a sense.
We can’t force habits on people. I definitely support all measures to reduce consumption of tobacco, but a ban may not be way to go about it. A ban only means the creation of a black market.
Samrat Chowdhery, Founder- Director of Council for Harm Reduced Alternatives (CHRA) and Association of Vapers India (AVI)