Mumbai: BMC counsels 4,000 students for e-cigarettes

After knowing about e-cigarette and the increasing trend around it, Hasina S (name change) a teenager used her pocket money and told one of her brother to purchase an e-cigarette for her so that she can see how it is used. Similar to Hasina, there are few other BMC school going students across the city who have either tried using e-cigarette once in their lifetime after seeing the increase in trend.

In a recent survey about usage of e-cigarette in school students, conducted at the 40 BMC schools, around 4,000 students of class 7 to 9 were counseled for e-cigarette usage in the year 2017-18.

Out of over 4,302 students who were oriented about the usage of tobacco and e-cigarette, over 34% (1,441 students) self-volunteered to get counseled in order to get de-addicted from e-cigarette and other tobacco usage.

Surprisingly, out of the 34% students, 14% of the addicted students were girls and 20% were boys from across the city.

Gauri Mandal from Salam Bombay Foundation, said, “In majority of the cases they buy the e-cigarette from the local retail shops. Besides local shops, online ordering is another option. While few of them prefer saving their pocket money and purchase fancy colourful and different flavored e-cigarettes. Few of the students had collectively contributed money to purchase the e-cigarettes and use it one by one.”

The survey further reveals that after six months of counseling done, of 34 % (1,441 students), 70% were successfully recovered and have been de-addicted. Looking at the cessation outcome after six months of counseling, the experts said that while overall 70% of the counseled students have successfully recovered, around 53% of them were e-cigarette users. Six group sessions in six months are organised for the students.

“E-cigarettes are easily accessible and prevalent among adolescents from slums of Mumbai and it is important to increase the awareness about the effects of e-cigarettes among them. Online marketing and various online platforms helps students to reach out to sellers,” said Mandal.