Punjab cracks down on electronic cigarette vendors

The charging of four vendors in the Punjab, India, for selling electronic cigarettes and liquid nicotine has made the pages of the Hindustan Times and drawn a comment from Hussan Lal, described as ‘Commissioner FDA and Punjab Secretary Health and Family Welfare’.

As well as being charged with the sales offences, the four vendors have been charged also with ‘violating the directive issued by the state government to make the state tobacco free’.

They are said to have been charged under various sections of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, part of which bans electronic cigarettes.

Lal was quoted as saying that as many as 20 districts of the Punjab had ‘already been declared tobacco free’.

Meanwhile, Ajay Singla, state drug controller, Punjab, said electronic cigarettes contained nicotine in chemical form which was a “lethal and addictive chemical”.

Under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, nicotine was allowed to be manufactured only as nicotine gums or lozenges. “Every other product which contained nicotine is illegal,” he said.