[Answered] Discuss the harmful impact of e-cigarettes. Do you think it is right to completely ban the e-cigarettes in India?

Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems or e-cigarettes are battery-operated, handheld devices that are alternatives to traditional smoking of cigarette. It emits doses of vaporised nicotine, or non-nicotine solutions, for the user to inhale. Inhaling e-cigarettes is injurious to health with major health risks.

Associated risks and other ill effects of e-cigarettes:

1. Drugs intake: They are now being used for other purposes such as inhaling various drugs etc. This lead to increase in drug consumption among youth. Continued use of nicotine can make other drugs, such as cocaine, more pleasurable.
2. Addictive: Most e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is addictive and lead to changes in the adolescent brain. Nicotine is more addictive than tobacco.
3. Risk to heart: E-cigarettes adversely affects the cardiovascular system with increased risk of hear attacks.
4. Respiratory diseases: It impairs respiratory immune cells function and airways similar to cigarette smoking and is responsible for severe respiratory disease like asthma.
5. Risk pregnancy: It poses risk to foetal, infant and child brain development. Therefore harmful to both mother and child.
6. Carcinogenic: The liquid contains substances that are carcinogens such as nitrosamines.
7. Lung disease: E-cigarettes expose the lungs to different substances. One of these is diacetyl, which can causes severe and irreversible lung disease.
8. Fatal: Accidental swallowing of liquid from e-cigarette has been fatal in many cases.
9. Not a smoking cessation device: People who use or who have used e-cigarettes are less likely to stop smoking altogether as they stop using conventional and medically monitored methods of doing so. A 2017 analysis of PATH data found that smokers who used e-cigarettes to quit smoking were more successful than non-e-cigarette users.
10. Dual users: Teens who use e-cigarette products are more likely to start using regular tobacco as well.

Why e-cigarettes complete ban is right step?

1. Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, Mizoram, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have already prohibited the use of e-cigarettes,Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS).
2. Thirty countries including Australia, Singapore and Sri Lanka have already brought in such bans.
3. These products are not registered as nicotine replacement therapy products in India. E-cigarettes usually contain nicotine which makes product addictive.
4. E-cigarettes cause health hazards for youth, young adults, and pregnant women.
5. A number of metals, including lead, chromium, and nickel, and chemicals like formaldehyde have been found in aerosols of some ENDS, with concentrations equal to or greater than traditional cigarettes which cause cancer.
6. Traditional cigarette manufacturing companies are having parallel e-cigarette like device making industries. This growing hub in India is under-regulated.
7. Lack of knowledge about negative effects of nicotine and easy accessibility of these products make the youth prone to addiction.

E-cigarettes poses major health risks. Ensuring Health of citizens is state’s responsibility. Therefore, banning e-cigarettes is a right decision. Some states have already banned use and sale of e-cigarettes.