Journalism of Courage
Alarmed at the increasing popularity of e-cigarettes on the one hand and the lack of awareness on the other,the health ministry has urged the Drug Controller General of India to regulate the electronic devices that delivers a shot of vapourised nicotine as drugs.
We have had a meeting with the drug controller on the matter of e-cigarettes. We are examining whether they can be classified as drugs under Schedule K of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and regulated accordingly, said joint secretary,tobacco control,in the ministry of health ministry,Shakuntala Gamlin.
The need to regulate,or not,the Electronic Nicotine Delivery System or e-cigarettes has been the subject of a heated global debate among health professionals. And last week,the Lancet Respiratory Medicine engaged with both sides of the debate in detail.
Without oversight,manufacturers of ENDS produce products that are more widely available,much cheaper,and might contain more nicotine and contaminants than competitor products manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. Meanwhile,sales of and profit projections for ENDS continue to increase rapidly and big tobacco companies are following with their own products, Dr Nathan Cobb of Georgetown University Medical Center in the US wrote in The Lancet.
Peter Hajek of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine,Queen Mary University,London,disagreed. He argued that regulation could jeopardise enormous potential benefits to public health by drastically reducing the appeal of e-cigarettes.
The EU is considering whether to regulate e-cigarettes as medical devices while Britain plans to bring in some regulation in 2016. And at the Southeast Asia regional meeting of the WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control,that concluded Friday,all countries resolved to control the use of smokeless tobacco,including e-cigarettes,and take measures to prevent the use of hookah.
Most e-cigarettes consist of battery-powered heating elements and replaceable cartridges that contain nicotine or other chemicals and an atomizer. The atomizer when heated vapourises contents of the cartridge,delivering a nicotine shot that a smoker craves,and without subjecting him to other harmful side-effects of traditional cigarettes such as tar. In India,e-cigarettes are marketed as health cigarette without details of contents,manufacturing date or country of origin,and largely sold illegally. There is only one well-known brand but many shady operators,health ministry officials said.
They also said the nicotine dose delivered is high and the device itself is a lethal poison if broken and accidentally swallowed by children.
