AVI urges govt to regulate e-cigarette

Association of Vapers India (AVI), an organisation representing smokers, has urged the Rajasthan government to bring a robust policy to regulate e-cigarette in the state.

The consumer advocacy group has offered to provide support to the government for the formulation of the policy.

E-cigarettes are less harmful alternative to tobacco smoking and is one possible intervention that would go a long towards saving lives of smokers, as seen in developed countries like the US, UK and European Union, Samrat Chowdhery, director AVI said today.

He said at a press conference here that the government should regulate e-cigarette instead of making any move to ban it.

Referring to Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS)-2, he informed that the state has over 68 lakh cigarette and bidi smokers, who could die prematurely if not weaned off this habit in time.

While the state government has made appreciable efforts to discourage smokers through taxation and tobacco control measures, the impact has been inadequate the current 5.6 per cent decline in smoking rate may not save many lives. That calls for rollout of additional intervention measures by the government, he said.

The AVI functionary suggested that potential harm to health of smokers could be reduced by up to 95 per cent if they switch to e-cigarettes.

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)