Explainer: A Lok Sabha MP was caught vaping. Is it legal to do so?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A complaint lodged in the Lok Sabha has brought Indian laws around vaping into focus. Vapes or e-cigarettes are banned in India, yet a Member of Parliament (MP) was allegedly using one openly in the premises.
Is it illegal to use these smokeless devices? Not quite. Mint explains. Last Thursday, during Zero Hour, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Anurag Thakur lodged a verbal complaint with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
He that an MP belonging to the Trinamool Congress was openly using e-cigarettes inside Parliament. He pointed out that e-cigarettes are banned throughout the country, and asked if they were allowed in Parliament. Thakur did not identify the MP by name, but a day later, a video TMC MP Saugata Roy surfaced, in which he was smoking an e-cigarette in front of reporters, while two Union ministers confronted him.
Thakur has filed a written complaint as well. India passed the Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes (Production, Manufacture, Import, Export, Transport, Sale, Distribution, Storage and Advertisement) or PECA Act in 2019. It defines an e-cigarette as any electronic device that heats a material—with or without nicotine—to release aerosol that a user can inhale.
These include vapes, e-hookahs, other smokeless inhaling products and Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems or ENDS. Unlike cigarettes, these products don't produce smoke and are usually flavoured. This law has detailed provisions banning companies and people from making, importing, storing, selling or advertising the use of vapes and e-cigarettes.
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