Electronic cigarette menace spreading: Excise Dept

Commissioner General of Excise of the Sri Lanka Excise Department, M.G. Gunasiri today said that electronic cigarettes are spreading very rapidly as a menace in Sri Lanka, especially in rural areas.

He made the comment after inspecting a stock of e-cigarettes valued around Rs 500,000 were seized after a raid conducted by the Ja-Ela Special Excise Unit from the Gampaha Excise Department.

The Commissioner General said that investigations have revealed that e-cigarettes are currently being used by school students under the age of 40 in the suburbs including Gampaha and Panadura.

However, these cigarettes are gradually spreading to remote areas of Sri Lanka.

He said a student of a popular school in Ratnapura brought such an electronic cigarette into his school and the parents have also complained to the school, the police and the excise department that they have been charged 20 rupees for smoking once.

E-cigarettes are currently being sold and distributed online and those cigarettes are manufactured similar to the form of smart wrist watches, pen drives, power banks, and perfume bottles, making it difficult to identify this as a cigarette.

He said some of the youths have been keeping the perfume bottles near their computers.

These cigarettes do not emit the traditional tobacco smell and because of the smell of apples, oranges, mangoes, bananas and cherries, it is difficult to think of this as a cigarette and take necessary measures, he said.

There are about 50,000 or 60,000 smokes in this cigarette, and after lighting it like a cigarette for sale in the market, it has to be smoked until it is finished, but it is special that these cigarettes can be smoked at any time, he added.

These cigarettes can be used for smoking at the required time by re-charging, and because these cigarettes produce artificial smoke and are highly carcinogenic due to their toxicity and highly addictive nature, according to the World Health Organization.

Pix by: T.K.G Kapila