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Cabinet may okay ordinance to ban e-cigarettes
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SME Times News Bureau | 10 Sep, 2019
Taking up a proposal from the Health Ministry, the Union cabinet may, in
its meeting on Wednesday, approve an ordinance to ban manufacturing and
sale of e-cigarettes.
E-cigarettes or "vaping" cigerattes are
often marketed as a harmless product to help quit smoking. It does not
burn tobacco but heats the liquid chemicals into a vapour or steam that a
person inhales. This is the reason it is also called vaping.
E-cigarettes are considered harmful to health.
"Given the health
risks associated with e-cigarettes, government has decided to ban it.
The Union cabinet is expected to take a decision on it," said an
official.
The Health Ministry has proposed to make production,
manufacturing, import, export, transport, sale, distribution or
advertisements of e-cigarettes a cognizable offence. Besides fines, the
offence could land one in jail for upto three years. The draft ordinance
also makes storage of e-cigarettes punishable with jail term upto 6
months and fine upto Rs 50,000 or both.
The move follows an
earlier advisory by the Health Ministry against Electronic Nicotine
Delivery Systems (ENDS) including e-cigarettes, heat-not-burn devices,
vape and other such devices.
"As such, the states/Union
territories are advised, in larger public health interest and in order
to prevent the initiation of ENDS by non-smokers and youth with special
attention to vulnerable groups, to ensure that any Electronic Nicotine
Delivery Systems (ENDS) including e-cigarettes, heat-not-burn devices,
vape, e-sheesha, e-nicotine flavoured hookah, and the like devices that
enable nicotine delivery are not sold (including online sale),
manufactured, distributed, traded, imported and advertised in their
jurisdictions," the advisory issued in August 2018 said.
Limited use of such products were, however, allowed as per Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Rules thereunder.
Meanwhile,
the Gujarat Tobacco Merchants Association (GTMA) and Gujarat Tobacco
Growers & Merchants Association (GTGMA) have appealed the government
to not ban e-cigarettes or other similar products, arguing it will
serve no purpose other than hurting the tobacco industry.
However,
supporting the government's move, the Protect our Livelihood campaign
of tobacco farmers, supported by the Federation of All India Farmer
Associations (FAIFA), said the opposition was from a "small group of
people with vested interests who are espousing the cause of multinational organisations".
In
a release, POLFAIFA said that a "handful of farmers" led by tobacco
merchants, who are suppliers to the vaping industry, were "misleading
policy makers and causing confusion that banning e-cigarettes and vaping
products, would lead to a tremendous loss of revenue to farmers and
tobacco traders", which was not the case.
It said that the
extraction of nicotine from tobacco for products like ENDS happens
largely outside India and allowing the e-cigarette trade to flourish in
India would have catastrophic effect on the country's tobacco farmers.
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