Electronic cigarettes are spreading like wildfire across the world, and India too is gradually waking up to this startling discovery. The trend is not just catching up among youngsters, but even smoking veterans are warming up to this unique nicotine solution. Recently, the product came under the scanner when they sparked off a controversy in the tobacco lobby for being termed as “smokeless cigarettes”. But despite the fervent claims of being harmless and nicotine free, medical experts are yet to give it a clean chit yet.
Says Dr P.C. Gupta, director of Healis Sekhsaria Institute of Public Health, “If they were nicotine free, nobody would smoke them.” He feels that the lack of awareness and information about the product is actually serving in gaining popularity. “It’s a relatively new concept and we are still not sure about how harmless it is. But it is far from nicotine-free. In fact, it has a nicotine voil within it, which is poisonous. Although the exact risks are still unknown, there are several anecdotal reports of so-called ‘benefit’ stories that are doing the rounds which are making people more keen on the product,” he adds.
But can e-cigarettes, as they have been christened, have the potential to strike gold in India? “I don’t think so, because they are very expensive and therefore beyond the reach of the common man. Also the regulation of the nicotine voils doesn’t confirm to the Poison Act in terms of storage, quantity and packaging,” says Dr Gupta. While several e-cigarette crusaders actually see this as a war against tobacco, organisations like Salaam Bombay Foundation remains highly critical. Shirin Bhatia, media spokesperson of the foundation says, “The nicotine content notwithstanding, the product still encourages smoking and it is this habit we need to fight at the grassroots level, without working our way around it.”