Consumption of psychoactive substances, notably cannabis, alcohol and tobacco, dates back to pre-history, but only in the last century has their cultivation, manufacture, sale and usage been legally regulated. Half-baked knowledge of their effects, coupled with geopolitical concerns, resulted in an irrational regulatory mechanism, which some countries are now seeking to rectify.
The attitude of Indian policymakers to recreational drugs is peculiar, to say the least. Recently, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) suggested a ban on e-cigarettes, vapes and other forms of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). Given the evidence that ‘e-cigs’ are less harmful than regular cigarettes and chewing tobacco, one might have expected ICMR to demand a ban on tobacco altogether.
Banning vapes, when tobacco cigarettes, bidis and khaini remain legal, is like permitting guns while prohibiting sling-shots. The reasons if any ‘reasoning’ went into the proposal at all can be found in numbers. The size of India’s tobacco industry is estimated at $11 billion. It employs 4.6 crore people. Exports amount to nearly a billion dollars a year. Banning the cultivation, manufacture and export of tobacco products would cost the exchequer a pretty penny, besides adding millions of people to the unemployment list.
In other words, India cannot afford to ban tobacco. So policy-makers choose to display their concern for public health by suggesting a ban on vapes, because they are a ‘gateway’ for young smokers! This is a specious argument in the Indian context, for two reasons. First of all, only the most wealthy adolescents can afford a vaping habit. For example, the popular ‘juul’ costs upwards of Rs 4,000 and the pods are at least Rs 300 each.
Secondly, young people don’t need a ‘gateway’; children as young as nine or ten get hooked on cigarettes or bidis or chewing tobacco, depending on their socio-economic status. Banning vapes or e-cigs is not going to help these children. Only vigilant supervision can restrict access to nicotine, be it in the form of bidis or vapes. For most parents, whether they work in fields or construction sites or offices, that degree of supervision is difficult.
Ideally, young people shouldn’t smoke or vape, but it is no ones case that the ideal is even remotely possible. Policymakers argue that vaping leads to cigarette-smoking by young people. It could as well be argued that vaping keeps young people away from cigarettes and is thus the better option. Government authorities would do better to monitor and set standards for the chemicals used in ‘vape juice’, some of which may be unsafe.
The law on cannabis is even more irrational. Cannabis use has a strong cultural component and indeed, has been described as “prasad of Lord Shiva”. The British Raj sought to criminalize cannabis in the 19th century, but it was in post-Independence India that laws specifically banning its possession, sale and use were passed – probably under US pressure. Bhang, without which Holi cannot be celebrated, is banned in some states, but legal in others.
Despite widespread use of cannabis in centuries past, India never had a drug problem. As British officials noted in the 19th century: “the moderate use of these drugs is the rule, and excessive use is comparatively exceptional. The moderate use practically produces no ill effects.”
Nearly six decades after the ban on cannabis, India has a serious drug problem, thanks to the introduction of synthetics and opium and cocaine derivatives. Surely, clubbing cannabis which has no major adverse health effects and indeed, some benefits in the same statue that governs hard drugs, is counter-productive? To date, there is no convicing evidence that cannabis is at all physiologically addictive, whereas heroin and cocaine definitely are.
Some members of Parliament have supported the legalization of cannabis, as a means to reduce the abuse of dangerous drugs and aid cancer patients in pain and anxiety management. It is high time that the government took a call. In fact, the cultivation of cannabis, which is native to India, could be a major revenue-spinner and create millions of jobs, to the point that it could compensate for tobacco.
The most popular drug of choice is alcohol. Prohibition is the default mechanism for dealing with alcohol abuse. The fact is that alcohol, unlike tobacco, does not kill if it is used as directed. Moderate consumption, it has been suggested, can be beneficial and is not addictive. It is also a major revenue-earner. Knee-jerk bans will only boost home production in makeshift stills or smuggling from neighbouring states and breed an underground industry.
Educating people about the abuse of nicotine, cannabis and alcohol and strictly restricting access of young people to any and all intoxicants - including high-caffeine drinks, cough syrup and other medications is the way forward.
The writer is a journalist with 35 years of experience.
