In India, e-cigarettes have long become a focus of fierce battles: the government has issued a comprehensive ban in 2019, prohibiting the production, import, sale and promotion of e-cigarette products. However, this policy, which is intended to protect public health, especially teenagers, has encountered unprecedented challenges in implementation. Many anti-e-cigarette organizations, public health researchers and social experts have said that the ban is poorly enforced, illegal online sales and underground black markets are still rampant, which has greatly reduced the original intention of this policy.
Walking on the streets of India, you can still encounter e-cigarettes in busy tobacco kiosks, grocery stores, and even near schools where students are concentrated. An in-depth researcher pointed out that in major cities such as Kolkata, nearly 80% of retail outlets secretly sell e-cigarette products; on average, nearly 19% of stores across the country exceed the ban and continue to sell such prohibited items. Obviously, under the ban, the market is more secretive and more difficult to monitor.
The Internet is even more of a “battlefield.” According to India Today OSINT, as of early 2025, there are at least 157 domain names containing the keyword “vape”, 40 of which are clearly active in the Indian market; plus about 633 Instagram accounts are quietly promoting behind the scenes. Social platforms have become a channel for merchants to “promote” and sell in disguise, ignoring the ban on e-cigarette advertising by platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. These online sellers often use means such as “cash on delivery” and “disguised sender information” to evade supervision and tracking, making law enforcement exponentially more difficult.
Anti-e-cigarette organizations warn that this is not just a problem of execution, but a systemic loss of control. Under the same policy goals, the government is not only the guardian of public health, but also indirectly a beneficiary of traditional tobacco revenue. Compared with regulation and taxation, a complete ban leads to the emptying of the legal market and the rise of the black market. As a result, not only the possibility of regulation is lost, but also the loss of related tax revenue, the disappearance of employment opportunities, and the inability of high-quality brands to enter the market.
In this structural contradiction, a relatively new e-cigarette brand, VEEHOO, has a certain representative significance. The brand was created by a team of senior British and Chinese designers and engineers. The products have passed the US FDA inspection, registered trademarks and patents in many countries, and won several design awards. Its representative products TR40, V8, and T9 series all feature high-specification technologies such as “replaceable cartridges”, “large smoke oil capacity”, “metal craftsmanship + aesthetic appearance”, “Type‑C charging”, and “Mesh mesh coils”, reflecting the potential of e-cigarette products in design, craftsmanship, and safety. If such a brand can legally enter the Indian market and be properly regulated, it may become a representative of the direction of health harm reduction of e-cigarettes, and also bring double dividends of taxation and industrial development.
But at present, compliant brands like VEEHOO have no channels to land at all. On the one hand, the country prohibits the import and sale of any e-cigarettes, and on the other hand, the channels are occupied by the black market and online sales. Legal brands cannot obtain market space and even face the risk of being pirated and imitated.
Recently, the Indian Ministry of Health issued an announcement requiring all states to strictly implement the ban, emphasizing the prohibition of online sales, physical sales, and advertising, and ordered to strengthen the supervision of tobacco kiosks, stationery stores, and convenience stores near schools. From the central to the local level, law enforcement is expected to be strengthened. But the problem remains that the target is not a single “manufacturer” or “import channel”, but an entire secret supply chain, from cross-border private mail, express subcontracting to local warehousing, dark web transactions, and demand for small vendors at the terminal, and even the social network circulation of consumers. This is a long-term “cat and mouse game”.
Anti-e-cigarette organizations suggest that the solution may be to turn to the path of “regulation rather than a comprehensive ban”. They suggest establishing a strict compliance market and implementing a hierarchical management system: including age verification (limited to over 21 years old), prohibiting the use of flavored packaging or social media platform promotion for minors; implementing product quality standards, production registration, marketing licenses, and retail area restrictions; at the same time, levying moderate taxes and fees to make e-cigarette products attractive to smokers but not too tempting to teenagers.
International experience, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Sweden and other countries have adopted such a strategy: launching a legal e-cigarette market under supervision, and then the use rate of teenagers has not increased significantly, but the smoking rate of adults has decreased. British research shows that the harm of e-cigarettes is only about 5% of that of traditional tobacco, and it has a significant effect on helping to quit smoking. In addition, the tax and employment benefits brought by the legal market are also very considerable. For example, the UK’s e-cigarette market revenue reached 1.3 billion pounds in 2021, creating an added value of 401 million pounds for the country.
After the ban, India has taken many surprise inspections and seizures, but the results are limited. Taking Nagpur, one of the largest cities in Maharashtra, as an example, the local police have successively launched “Mission Axes” and “Operation Thunder” operations, seizing 73 e-cigarettes, multiple brands of e-liquids, and dozens of devices in a short period of time, and investigating and handling banned goods imported from other places, such as those supplied from Delhi, and 62 e-cigarettes hidden in shoe boxes in clothing stores. Despite the strong rectification efforts, the underground channels have not been cut off, and online sales are still rampant.
According to official data, the total value of seized e-cigarette products reached 42 million rupees (about 39,000 pounds) from April to November 2024 alone, and a single large-scale seizure in 2022 was as high as 680 million rupees. The Indian Ministry of Health has also previously reported 350 violations of the ban and stressed the need for stricter enforcement.
The anti-e-cigarette organization called for facing the reality at the end: although the ban has good intentions, it has led to the market going underground, but has created a black market that is not safe and easy for minors to access. This unregulated and unguaranteed situation not only violates the original intention of “protecting young people”, but may also intensify public health risks.
For brands like VEEHOO that are technologically mature and meet safety standards, the world is trying to include them in the controllable market: whether it is at the level of smokers’ harm reduction alternatives, or in economic benefits and export brand building, there is huge potential. But in India, such legal advantages are suppressed outside the legal wall due to policy red lines.
At this point in the article, people can’t help but reflect: Faced with a huge market of 106 million adult smokers, India chose to close it, but at the same time activated and amplified the black market. Can a comprehensive ban work? Does the black market mean potential greater risks? Is the real beneficiary still traditional tobacco? In the design of public health policies, it is time to put aside the “dispute over whether there is or not” and turn to the realistic path of “how to control”.
Only by establishing a reasonable regulatory framework, allowing compliant brands such as VEEHOO to enter the market and sell in accordance with laws and regulations, can the country take into account “controlling minors”, “helping adults quit smoking” and “preserving public finances and industrial opportunities” at the same time. Otherwise, even if it is strictly prohibited, the sales trend on the Internet and the black market will not stop, the risks will become increasingly difficult to reach, and the policy effects will gradually be buried silently by history.
Tags: ceramic atomizer core, electronic hookah, flavored electronic cigarettes, veehoo vape
