After the Government banned electronic cigarettes citing health risks, two NGOs are planning to move the Supreme Court seeking a similar action against conventional cigarettes and other carcinogenic tobacco products, arguing they are more harmful.
The Delhi-based NGO URJA (United Residents Joint Action) and the Hyderabad-based group VchangeU are in the process of filing a writ and class suit in which they will also demand compensation -- Rs 5 lakh for those suffering medical costs due to smoking-related ailments, and Rs 10 lakh for those who lost an earning member of the family.
The Government recently issued an ordinance making the production, import, export, transport, sale or advertisements of “alternative” smoking devices a cognizable offence, and attracting a jail term and fine “in the interest of public health to protect the people from harm”.
The Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes (Production, Manufacture, Import, Export, Transport, Sale, Distribution, Storage and Advertisement) Bill, 2019, which seeks to replace the ordinance issued on September 18, was passed by Lok Sabha.
E-cigarettes promoting trade bodies, users and other stakeholders have been vehemently opposing the government’s decision to ban e-cigarettes, claiming they were far less harmful than traditional cigarettes and the prohibition was brought to “protect” the conventional cigarette industry.
The founder and president of VchangeU, Vijay Bhasker Yetapu, who is also one of the petitioners, said the government decision has opened up a favourable opportunity for activists and people suffering from tobacco addiction as a government “sensitive to the ills of nicotine addiction would not discriminate between different forms of the same.”
“Thus, if e-cigarettes can be banned, so can traditional tobacco burning cigarettes and beedis - which are categorically agreed to cause cancer or such diseases that result in deaths. Health ministry figures say that 12 lakh deaths are reported each year by tobacco smoking. No such figure or linkage is yet medically or scientifically established as regards to the use of e-cigarettes.
