Alternative tobacco and nicotine products in India

India: Netflix, Amazon and Disney reportedly met last Friday to explore a possible legal challenge to the rules issued by the Ministry of Health on 31st May obliging streaming platforms to display anti-tobacco warning messages whenever a tobacco product or its use is shown, from 31st August. The companies say the rule could force them to stop offering their services in India as they would have to modify and edit millions of hours of old web content in order to comply.

India: The Health Ministry has called for stricter enforcement of the statutory ban, which covers manufacturing, import, export, distribution and advertising of heated tobacco devices as well as e-cigarettes, including parts and accessories, press reports.

India: The Supreme Court has stayed an order by the Madras High Court that quashed the Tamil Nadu food safety commissioner’s decision to ban the manufacture, storage, transport, distribution and sale of gutkha, pan masala and other chewable products containing tobacco or nicotine, press reports. It means the sale of such products remains banned in Tamil Nadu, a southern state with a population of 76m.

India: A former Parliament member has published an academic paper concluding that the national ban on heat-not-burn (HnB) products ordered by the government in 2019 has been unsuccessful. Rajeev Gowda said the country should lift the ban and instead regulate heated tobacco through the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA). Gowda also suggested commissioning studies on how HnB products can be used as a harm-reduction tool and smoking-cessation aid.

India: The Delhi High Court has upheld a ban imposed by the city’s Food Safety Commissioner on the manufacture, storage and sale of gutka, pan masala, flavoured smokeless tobacco, and similar products in the city, press reports. The ban was quashed by the same court last September, but a new bench has now set that decision aside. The court noted that the ban does not prohibit tobacco itself, but the addition of tobacco to “food products”, defined as including the named oral products.

India: Health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said yesterday that the central government is working on amending several laws regulating tobacco, namely the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, the Food Safety and Standards Act, and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, to cover new products, press reports. 

India: The national Ministry of Health has written to all state health ministries asking them to ensure compliance with the statutory ban on heated tobacco products, press reports. The letter expresses concern over the availability of heat-not-burn (HnB) products, e-cigarettes and e-hookahs online and in convenience stores near schools, giving young people easy access to prohibited devices.