From Now On, No More E-Cigarettes In India

From now on, there’s going to be a ban on e-cigarettes in India. You can be a smoker. You may even be a passive smoker; someone who constantly inhales the deadly smoke indirectly. But make no mistake, all of the puffing and huffing pertaining to e-cigarettes is soon going to be a thing of the past.

There’s going to be an e-cigarette ban in India. The piece of news is confirmed and has already attracted a lot of talk in the market now.

For the longest time, we’ve heard that smoking is deadly. Smoking is dangerous. Yet, some of us, either out of a weak will or maybe out of a complete lack of trying have often resorted to the habit.

So how does all of this pan out? E-cigarette ban in India is no longer a headline material topic. It’s a serious reality that will strike the mind of those who are hand in glove with the vicious habit.

The simple reason being that the prohibition of the Electronic Cigarettes Bill, 2019, was passed by the Rajya Sabha with a voice vote. Really, this comes out as a real shock to those who may have thought that such a thing might not be a reality anytime soon in a country often thought of being far too liberal.

The said bill was actually passed in the respected Lok Sabha, and that too, earlier last month, in November.

So where it stands right now, we are actually sitting from days and minutes away from the e-cigarette ban in India.

E-cigarette ban in India, of course, has nothing to do with the way the alternative-to-smoking way became a regular habit. With the excesses and ills of cigarette smoking becoming a reality

For the longest time, there have been some interesting thoughts shared on the very critical issue of smoking and the ills concerned with it. E-smoking was largely seen and still is, as a foreign concept. Yet, it has a habit that needs a reality check. Whether it is a healthy medium or not has been debated widely in several public forms.

Whether it is harmful- well, it’s still smoking at the end of the day- we don’t know. But the truth of the matter is, it appears there’s no legal space for it in the country anymore.

Of these, noted journal India Today happened to share the following:

We have done it with very pious intention. There is no vested interest,” Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told the House in his reply on the bill.

During the debate on the bill, some members expressed apprehensions that the government had brought this bill under pressure from the tobacco lobby and demanded the ban be extended to raw tobacco and conventional cigarettes.

The minister said that he would be the happiest person on the earth if tobacco could be banned completely.

The bill defines electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) as electronic devices that heat a substance, which may contain nicotine and other chemicals, to create vapour for inhalation.

The bill provides for imprisonment of up to one year, or a fine of up to one lakh rupees, or both to a first time violator.

For any subsequent offence, it says that the crime will be punishable with an imprisonment of up to three years, along with a fine of up to five lakh rupees.

Under the Bill, no person is allowed to use any place for the storage of any stock of e-cigarettes. If any person stores any stock of e-cigarettes, he will be imprisoned for up to six months, or slapped with a fine of up to fifty thousand rupees, or both.