NGO asks for complete ban on import, sale of e-cigarettes

New Delhi: The National Health Forum, an NGO working in the field of tobacco control, has written to Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan requesting for complete ban of manufacturing, distribution, import and sale of e-cigarettes or similar products.

In letter to Dr Harsh Vardhan, managing trustee of National Health Forum, Mandakini Sing wrote, “For the past many decades, the ministry of health along with WHO and domestic NGOs have worked zealously to ensure that cigarettes and other tobacco products are manufactured in reasonable and limited quantities and to that effect, it is a licensed product with licensed capacities. Any easing of these norms will lead to a deluge of these tobacco products which are pernicious to health.”

She pointed that the decision of the ministry of health to ensure that the manufacture, distribution, import and sale of e-cigarettes ends. “All other ministries must support this move of the ministry of health and ensure that such products are banned and are not included as legal products under the COTPA or the Drugs and Cosmetics Act (as such products are banned under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act),” Ms Sing demanded.

She pointed that after a lot of thought, the ministry of health in consultation with various NGOs had issued advisory for states to ban e-cigarettes, e-vaps and e-hookah and similar such products.