Local governments should tighten the regulations on an estimated 70,000 betel nut stands around the nation who illegally display cigarette packs and who are suspected of selling the addictive product to minors, the anti-tobacco group John Tung Foundation urged yesterday.
"Because of their easy accessibility and popularity, betel nut stands have become a major source for supplying cigarettes to teenagers," the foundation's chief executive officer Hwang Jenn-tai (黃鎮台), said at a press conference yesterday in Taipei.
About 17 percent of teenaged males and 4 percent of females in this country take up smoking, according to statistics from the Bureau of Health Promotion. Since Taiwan opened its market to foreign tobacco companies in 1987, the smoking rate among youngsters under the age of 18 has climbed steadily. The figures also suggested that smoking is responsible for approximately 20 percent of all deaths brought on by illnesses annually. Roughly 17,500 die of smoking-induced diseases nationwide each year.
As a footnote to such statistics, the foundation said, is that the real impact that smoking has on the health of teenagers is far from fully assessed, since many teenagers refuse to admit their smoking habits.
Despite the Tobacco Hazard Control Act (菸害防治法), which prohibits supermarkets and convenience stores from selling cigarettes to teenagers, but the law does not apply to betel nut vendors.
"Betel nut stands are a loophole in the law. There is no law to regulate them. If the police come, they can just pack up and leave," the foundation's legal counselor Yu Kai-hsiung (游開雄) said.
"The next day, you will see them open on another street corner," he added.
The array of cigarette packs in betel nut window stands violates Article 9 of the Tobacco Hazard Control Act, which inhib-its the display of tobacco products to an unspecified audience.
Vendors who break the law could face fines ranging from NT$100,000 to NT$300,000.
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