Teachers in Karnataka are discovering that many school and college students are switching over to e-cigarettes, which are officially banned for sale but available in a variety of shops.
The rise of e-cigarettes, which cost between Rs. 500 and Rs. 3,000 each, is worrying the State Government’s High Powered Committee on Tobacco Control, as it learns of the trend from teachers. One teacher from a noted Bengaluru college who alerted it found her 18-year-old son also using it.
The son tried to assure his mother that it was not harmful because “it was not smoking but vaping.” Another teacher from a school found girls in her class vaping during the lunch break.
There is now added worry, as the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR) has discovered that teens have turned e-cigarettes into devices for consuming ‘e-drugs’ such as hashish oil, marijuana wax and cannabis products sold by the black trade in cartridges. Nicotine cartridges cost about Rs. 400.
The Committee recently reviewed enforcement on the ban on sale (including online), manufacture, distribution, trade, import and advertisement of e-cigarettes.
KSCPCR chairperson Kripa Amar Alva wrote to State Drugs Controller B. T. Khanapure on September 23, asking for strict enforcement of the ban and for alerting of school authorities and parents.
Quoting a study published in the journal Pediatrics that pointed to the incidence of high school students using e-cigarettes to vaporise marijuana and other drugs being 27 times higher than the adult rate, Ms. Alva said : “This new addiction method helps users to discreetly vape deodorized drugs and its extracts without the neighbouring person realising as it does not need to ignite the flame..”
U.S. Vishal Rao, a member of the High Powered Committee on Tobacco Control, said even some teachers who highlighted vaping were not aware of the addition of drugs. “While online sales have stopped, e-cigarettes are easily available in petty shops, fancy stores, provision stores and even bakeries. We have been informed that such activities are found in certain areas such as Tannery road, DJ Halli, Ramamurthynagar, Koramangala and around certain educational institutions in other cities such as Mangaluru and Manipal.” Some students said they were using it for ‘creative thinking’.
The Committee has asked the ADP (Crime) to step up enforcement.
Anyone who notices trade in e-cigarettes and even other forms of tobacco in the vicinity of educational institutions can complain on the government website cotpa.kar.nic.in, he added.
E-cigarettes being marketed and sold online have no license, said E. Vidhubala, head, Resource Centre for Tobacco Control, Cancer Institute, Adyar in Chennai. “E-cigarettes are not a form of nicotine replacement therapy and are not recommended by the WHO. They are just an alternative way of delivering nicotine,” she said.
With inputs from Zubeda Hamid in Chennai
