India bans e-cigarettes amid global vaping backlash
NEW DELHI: India has banned the sale of electronic cigarettes and warned of an “epidemic” among young people, in the latest and potentially biggest move globally against vaping over growing health concerns.
The ban cuts off a huge future market from e-cigarette makers at a time when the number of smokers worldwide is declining.
“These novel products come with attractive appearances and multiple flavours, and their use has increased exponentially and acquired epidemic proportions in developed countries, especially among youth and children,” India’s health ministry said on Wednesday.
The ban covers the production, import and advertising of e-cigarettes – but not the use of them. It comes at a time when vaping is facing increased scrutiny in other countries.
The United States last week revealed plans to remove flavoured e-cigarettes from stores, warning that sweet flavours had drawn millions of children into nicotine addiction.
The Indian prohibition will be imposed through an executive order and will include jail terms of up to three years for offenders.
India has 106 million adult smokers, second only to China in the world, making it a lucrative market for vaping product companies such as US-based Juul and Philip Morris, which manufactures a heat-not-burn tobacco device.
The ban was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at a news conference on Wednesday, where she showed various types of products to the media, including a Juul vaping device, which resembles a USB flash drive.
Juul had plans to launch its e-cigarette in India and hired several senior executives in recent months. Philip Morris also planned to launch its heat-not-burn smoking device in India, Reuters has reported.
Juul, in which tobacco giant Altria group owns a 35% stake, is already facing government scrutiny in its home market and elsewhere.
In China, Juul said on Tuesday that its products were not currently available on e-commerce websites, days after it entered the market. India’s vapour products market was valued at US$57mil (RM238mil) last year, according to data from Euromonitor International.
Before the ban, the research group estimated the market in India would grow by nearly 60% a year up to 2022.
Shane MacGuill, head of tobacco research at Euromonitor in London, said the India ban could push other countries to follow suit, hurting the global vapour industry.
The global market for e-cigarettes is still small compared to cigarettes, but is growing rapidly. Last year, global cigarette sales totalled over US$713bil (RM2.98 trillion) compared to US$15.7bil (RM65bil) for vapour products, according to Euromonitor.
By 2023, the vapour category is projected to rise to US$40bil (RM167bil), while cigarettes are expected to decline slightly.
E-cigarette advocates say vaping, which usually involves inhaling a vapour formed from heating up a liquid containing nicotine, is far less harmful than smoking tobacco.
But many tobacco control activists are opposed to the devices, saying they could lead to nicotine addiction and push people towards consuming tobacco.
More than 900,000 people die each year due to tobacco-related illnesses in India, home to about 1.3 billion people.
The ban order will impose a jail term of up to one year and a fine of 100,000 rupees (RM5,865) for first-time offenders. A repeat violation would attract a jail term of up to three years and a penalty of up to 500,000 rupees (RM29,326), the government said.
The ban would cover the manufacture, import, sale, advertisement and distribution of e-cigarettes. But it would not apply to the end users of such devices, Vikas Sheel, a senior official at India’s health ministry, said.