A decade of organising

Beyond the courtroom — AVI's public campaigns

Litigation and policy letters are one half of AVI's work; the other is getting in front of the public and the press directly — protests, seminars, delegations to government, and campaigns that turned vapers' own health data and lived experience into evidence. This is that record, city by city and year by year.

Research drive

#WarOnTar Campaign

1 Sept 2024

A crowdsourced lung-health data drive: AVI asked vapers and ex-smokers to take two low-cost tests and share the results, building a real-world evidence base to present to the health ministry.

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Two out of three people who smoke die from it — and AVI’s argument has always been that switching to vaping significantly reduces that risk. The #WarOnTar campaign set out to make that case with real-world data rather than argument alone: vapers and ex-smokers were asked to take two low-cost lung-health tests (₹1,200–1,500) at a centre near them, which doubled as a free health check for participants, and submit the results through a confidential AVI survey form.

The goal was twofold — give participants a genuine read on their own lung health, including any lingering effects of past smoking, and build a dataset large enough to be worth putting in front of India’s health ministry as part of AVI’s ongoing push against the vaping ban.

Delegation

AVI delegation meets the Union Minister of State for Health

1 Nov 2020 · New Delhi

An AVI delegation met then Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel to press the case for evidence-based regulation of e-cigarettes rather than prohibition, alongside a wider push published as an India-focused policy report.

An AVI delegation meeting with the Union Minister of State for Health, Anupriya Patel

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Around the same time AVI’s India-specific policy input was cited in a global report on tobacco harm reduction, an AVI delegation secured a direct meeting with Anupriya Patel, then Union Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare, to make the case in person: that a blanket ban denies India’s roughly 27 crore tobacco users — of whom over 10 crore smoke — access to a lower-risk way to quit or switch, and that regulation, not prohibition, is what the evidence from the 65-plus nations that allow e-cigarettes actually supports.

Seminar

Policy Dialogue on E-Cigarettes Ban in India

3 Sept 2020 · New Delhi

A public seminar convened by AVI to bring policymakers, a Delhi High Court lawyer and a cardio-metabolic physician together to discuss the one-year-old ENDS ban's real-world impact.

Samrat Chowdhery being interviewed by a television crew at an AVI Policy Dialogue on E-Cigarettes, New Delhi — Media interview at AVI's Policy Dialogue on E-Cigarettes, New Delhi

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Roughly a year into the national ENDS ban, AVI convened a public policy dialogue in New Delhi to bring together the range of expertise the original ban decision had left out: Samrat Chowdhery (AVI director, who had become president of the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations’ (INNCO) governing board two months earlier) on policy and consumer advocacy; Dr Rohan Sequeira, a cardio-metabolic physician at Mumbai’s Jaslok Hospital, on the clinical case for tobacco harm reduction; Dr Farrukh Khan, a senior Delhi High Court lawyer, on the pending legal challenges; and Kanav Rishi Kumar, an ex-smoker who had switched to vaping, speaking to lived experience.

The event drew press coverage and framed the questions AVI would keep raising for years afterward: what evidence, if any, justified the ban, and what had actually happened to smokers and vapers in the year since it took effect.

Digital mobilisation

#WorldVapeDay — India

30 May 2020

AVI's annual participation in World Vape Day (May 30), coordinating an India-specific social media push, a livestream of quit stories, and direct emails to MPs and MLAs alongside the global consumer movement.

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Every May 30, vapers and ex-smokers around the world mark World Vape Day — a coordinated push by consumer advocates to put lived quit-and-switch stories in front of the public and policymakers on the same day, in one voice. AVI ran India’s participation as a multi-part campaign: a Twitter push tying into the global effort, an evening livestream where vapers spoke for a few minutes each about their own quit journeys, a social-media sensitisation drive aimed at the Indian public, and a ready-made email template supporters could send straight to their MPs and MLAs.

The campaign leaned on the same core argument each year: with an estimated 42 million vapers worldwide standing behind harm reduction, and roughly 11 crore Indian smokers who could benefit from access to safer alternatives, the goal was to make that constituency impossible to ignore.

Protest

India Vape Ban Protest — six cities, one day

28 Sept 2019 · Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata

AVI organised a coordinated, same-day protest against the newly promulgated ENDS ban ordinance across six Indian cities, arguing the decision was anti-science and taken without evidence or public consultation.

Vapers holding placards reading 'Vaping is 95% safer than smoking' and listing Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai, at a coordinated multi-city protest against the ENDS ban — Placards from the coordinated six-city protest against the ENDS ban ordinance

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Days after the central government promulgated the Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Ordinance, 2019 — bypassing Parliament and banning sale, manufacture, import, export, distribution and advertisement of ENDS, with penalties of up to a year in jail — AVI organised a nationwide protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi and in parallel venues in five other cities, all on the same afternoon.

City leads and volunteer coordinators ran each location: Jantar Mantar in Delhi, the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh in Mumbai, Lamakaan in Hyderabad, Freedom Park in Bengaluru, Raj Park Hotel in Chennai, and the Press Club in Kolkata. Organisers requested and received local police permission in advance, and set clear ground rules for participants: no minors, no littering, no vaping in public during the protest itself, and calm, respectful engagement with anyone who asked questions.

The protest’s core argument, carried on placards and in the accompanying press release: 65 nations regulate e-cigarettes rather than banning them; the ordinance was rushed through without the research or public hearings a policy affecting an estimated 11 crore Indian smokers should have had; and the ban would not stop use, only push it into an unregulated black market with no age checks or quality control — exactly what happened in the years that followed.

Press conference

State-ban press conferences — Karnataka, Chandigarh and beyond

1 Jan 2018 – 31 Dec 2020 · Bengaluru, Chandigarh

As individual states moved to ban e-cigarette sale ahead of, and alongside, the national law, AVI delegates held press conferences in the affected states to present research and case studies directly to local media.

AVI presenting research and case studies on e-cigarettes/ENDS at a press conference, Press Club of Bangalore — Presenting research and case studies at the Press Club of Bangalore, in response to Karnataka's state-level ban

AVI press conference on tobacco harm reduction, Chandigarh — Press conference on tobacco harm reduction, Chandigarh

AVI press conference on tobacco harm reduction, part of a multi-city series — Part of the same multi-city press conference series

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Before the 2019 national ordinance, several Indian states — Karnataka among them — moved on their own to restrict or ban e-cigarette sale. AVI delegates responded city by city, holding press conferences to walk local media through the research and case studies the state decisions had not accounted for, arguing the same case made nationally: that regulation, not prohibition, was the evidence-based path, and that state bans would push existing users toward an unregulated market rather than reduce use.