In a recent case of Sutirtha Dutta v. Bureau of Civil Aviation Security[1], Dr. Farrukh Khan, stood to represent the Petitioner in challenging the ban imposed on carrying of E-Cigarettes in flights and airports. While putting forth the petition, Dr. Khan presented the Court with some clarity regarding the importance of e-cigarettes for someone who intends to quit smoking. He stated that there are huge chances of relapse for a person who has quit smoking with the help of e-cigarettes when he is not allowed to carry it along with him during travel.

Before moving on to understand the relevance of ban or removal of ban on vaping devices/e-cigarettes in India, it is pertinent to focus on the following:

          “According to the GATS 2 data, there are about 267 million tobacco users in India. Our quit rate is poor at about 1.15 million each year and in the last seven years, only 8.1 million people have quit tobacco for good. The death rate from tobacco use meanwhile is around 1.35 million per year…If we transition people who are unwilling or unable to quit tobacco, to far less risky forms of nicotine consumption such as vaping/e-cigarettes, snus, nicotine pouches, etc., we can save lives and reduce the burden of tobacco-related illnesses.”[2]

The order issued on January 10, 2020, issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, banned the transport of e-cigarettes at Indian airports and aircraft, citing the Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Act passed by the parliament on December 5, in the year 2019.[3] Sometime during the year 2021, a top WHO Award was given to India’s former Health Minister for imposing a ban on vaping devices in India. This has made the Government to focus on certain real strategies to help in quitting tobacco consumption in India through other practices.

If we look at the demographics, it is the poor and the lower middle class which consume the maximum tobacco products available at low prices. India being the second largest consumer and producer of tobacco products, drags in a massive portion of the population into the habit of smoking as well as consuming smokeless tobacco. When it comes to E-Cigarettes or Vaping devices, which are otherwise claimed to be safer to use in terms of health, the cost remains unaffordable by a major portion of Indian population.

However, E-Cigarettes or Vaping Devices have proven to be helpful in making people quit smoking. Although this benefit does exist, there is not much access of the Indian population to using them because of the price factor. Even if the price factor affects a particular section of the population, there is also a section of population which intends to quit smoking or consuming tobacco with the help of e-cigarettes and preventing such portion of the population from carrying the devices during travel clearly pushes them back to smoking and this again disturbs the health quotient of the country.