Ban e-cigarettes, vaping products: Bharatiya Kisan Union
KS Diwan/ royalpatiala.in/ Chandigarh
To save livelihoods of Indian farmers from the multinational groups, Bharatiya Kisan Union has appealed to Agriculture and Commerce Minister seeking complete ban on e-cigarettes and vaping products in India.
In a press statement released, Jagjeet Singh Dallewala from Bharatiya Kisan Union said, “If e-cigarettes or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) are allowed in India, the trade will have a devastating effect on the tobacco farmers in India. The main reason is that the e-cigarette companies who are trying to open shops in India are from foreign origin and does not use Indian tobacco. In fact, the countries that these e-cigarettes belong to like United States of America have also banned them.”
He said further that overall, more than 30 countries have banned these e-cigarettes / ENDS and other countries are planning to ban them. The tobacco growing countries like Thailand, Nepal, Brazil, Mexico, Sri Lanka have also banned ENDS to save the livelihoods of their farmers.
A very small group of farmers and merchants are feeding false information that ENDS will help Indian tobacco farmers, asserted Dallewala .
On the other hand for products like ENDS, extraction of nicotine from tobacco mostly happens from outside India and the tobacco used is also grown outside India, he said.
“Also, the raw material used to manufacture nicotine is the tobacco dust produced while processing chewing and beedi tobacco. The farmers do not produce any fresh quantity of tobacco to extract nicotine. Their advise of loss of export potential of nicotine will negatively impact farmers is also wrong as presently there are no restrictions on exports of nicotine.”
The introduction of ENDS will put further stress on the Indian tobacco farmers as they are already stressed due to high regulation and taxation, he maintained.
All the tobacco growing farming states are states are demanding a complete ban of e-cigarettes and vaping products. Bharatiya Kisan Union also appeals to covernment to save the livelihoods of Indian farmers by banning ENDS, he demanded.
