The use of Electronic Nicotines Delivery Systems (ENDS) could reduce harm by 90-95 percent as compared to Tobacco-based smoking which is remarkable and Government policies could encourage to shift towards ENDS which is in a very nascent stage in the country said RN Sharan, Professor, Biochemistry Department-North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) while talking to the ‘The Pioneer’ in the State Capital on Wednesday.
Prof. Sharan said that the conclusions drawn and from around 299 pieces of literature across the global over ENDS.
Answering the prevalence in the country of ENDS, he said, that the rate of acceptance is still very slow and would gradually grow after people would understand and replace it with the existing Tobacco based smoking products.
He said In UK they have accepted that ENDS is less harmful to the extent of 95 percent.
In the context of India according to GATS-2 data in the country around 2.67 lakh ENDS users are present.
When asked regarding the rate of retention of ENDS Prof. Saran provided that once an individual opts ENDS leaving Tobacco the chances of trend of going back to the earlier one are very less and which has been proved on factual basis, it is around 7.53 is the reversal trend.
On asking regarding the availability, pricing of ENDS as compared to Tobacco products Prof. Saran said that government has to come up with policies which could figure this out as it would help the country in getting rid of Tobacco smoking which is one the most critical public health challenges and India homes to approximately 106 million cigarette smokers which accounts for almost 11.2% of the world’s smokers.
