JAIPUR/KOTA: Health department will conduct study on e-cigarettes to find out their ill effects on Thursday. Health minister
Kalicharan Saraf said that if it is found harmful in the study, directions will be issued to ban it in the state.
He said that in the investigation, it will be find out if e-cigarette contains nicotine. He added that a series of efforts have been made to discourage use of tobacco products in the state for preventing cancer.
Social organisations and activists have welcomed the move. “If Rajasthan bans e-cigarettes, it will be next state in the country to impose ban on e-cigarettes. So far, states, including Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Mizoram Jammu-Kashmir and Maharashtra have banned e-cigarettes. But in Rajasthan e-cigarettes are sold in medical shops and even online,” said Jayesh Joshi,
Secretary of Vaagdhara, an organization working for tobacco control in Rajasthan.
It is worth mentioning that health activists and specialist in the state were continuously demanding for e-cigarettes ban in Rajasthan. The demand was getting stronger as some research studies had come out with the result that E-cigarettes are as harmful as a normal cigarette is.
E-cigarettes are certainly as harmful as those of the common tobacco
cigarettes and currently youths are more inclined to e-cigarettes, said Dr
Amit Goyal, cancer surgeon at AIIMS, Jodhpur. He added ban on the same would help save a large number of youths from its consumption.
An e-cigarette or Electronic Nicotine Delivery System (ENDS) is a battery-operated smoking device that creates an aerosol by heating a mix of liquid nicotine with water, chemicals and flavor which, when inhaled, gives the feel of smoking a real cigarette. Manufacturers claim the aerosol is just water vapor, but tests have detected the presence of toxic chemicals in it.
According to the WHO consumers should be advised not to use any of these products, because their safety and efficacy for helping people to quit smoking have not been scientifically demonstrated enough.
