At a Department of Health (DOH,
The pledge comes as a bill that would ban such sponsorship is making its way through the Legislative Yuan.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
This year's WHO campaign for World No Tobacco Day focuses on sports, under the banner "Tobacco-Free Sports -- Play it Clear."
"The DOH would like to call on the public to support the WHO in calling for the disassociation of sports and cultural events from tobacco advertising," said Minister of Health Lee Ming-liang (李明亮) in his speech at the press conference.
Representatives from the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee (CTOC, 中華奧委會), the Cabinet's Council of Cultural Affairs (文化建設委員會) and the National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports (NCPFS, 體育委員會) and several local sports associations attended the press conference.
Both the CTOC and the NCPFS pointed out that cases of organizers of sporting events seeking sponsorship from tobacco companies were rare in Taiwan, because of concerns about negative publicity.
But, as Secretary General of the CTOC, Chen Kuo-yi (陳國儀), told the Taipei Times, there are competitions sponsored by tobacco companies which use the events to promote non-tobacco products -- such as watches, clothes, or other accessories. For example, tobacco company Davidoff has sponsored a golf competition called the Davidoff Tour, while Mild Seven sponsored a hang-gliding competition.
Weng Ruei-heng (翁瑞亨) head of the DOH's bureau of health promotion said that, aside from demonstrating the government's determination, yesterday's press conference was also intended to warn sports and arts groups that the Act for the Prevention and Control of Tobacco Hazards (菸害防治條例), will likely soon receive the legislature's approval.
Declaring that sports associations would "fully support" a ban on tobacco advertising, Chen Jung-Sheng (陳榮盛), vice chairman of NCPFS, said that the Winter Olympics in Calgary in 1988 and in Salt lake City in 2002 were tobacco-free games, as is the FIFA World Cup, which kicked off yesterday.
The WHO estimates that tobacco kills over four million people a year worldwide and will kill 8.4 million people per year by the year 2020.
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