E-cigarette use in Taiwan has tripled since 2018, a study by the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday.
E-cigarette use grew from 0.6 percent in 2018 to 1.7 percent last year, said the study, which last year garnered responses from 25,000 people aged 18 or older.
The age groups with the highest rates of use were men aged 26 to 30 (6.3 percent) and women aged 21 to 25 (4.6 percent), the HPA said.
“To put this growth into perspective, use of traditional cigarettes grew only marginally over this period, from 13 percent in 2018 to 13.1 percent in 2020,” HPA Tobacco Control Division official Lu Meng-ying (呂孟穎) said. “The situation needs urgent attention, especially as new e-cigarette users are almost all young people.”
Asked why they use e-cigarettes, 38.9 percent of respondents said it was due to curiosity, 17.3 percent said it was an attempt to quit regular cigarettes and 9.7 percent said it was because their friends use them.
“The UN says that e-cigarettes are ineffective as a means of quitting regular cigarettes, so this motivation is worrying,” Lu said.
E-cigarettes and heated tobacco products — devices that heat tobacco leaves, as opposed to the oils used in e-cigarettes — are just as unhealthy as traditional tobacco products, he said.
The use of flavored tobacco products is also on the rise, increasing from 8.2 percent of respondents aged 18 to 40 in 2018 to 15.6 percent last year, Lu said.
Of the users of flavored tobacco interviewed last year, 41.7 percent were women and 12.5 percent were men, he said.
Of the women, 68.2 percent were aged 21 to 25, and 68.1 percent of the men were 18 to 20, he said.
“There are more than 1,200 additives used in flavored-tobacco products, and the vast majority of them are chemically derived,” he said. “The goal of manufacturers is to prevent new smokers, especially young women, from being turned off by foul smells.”
While the chemicals might be harmless in small doses, the effects of long-term use are not well understood, he said.
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