Mon, Mar 14, 2022 page3

• INTERVIEW: Agency boss discusses stricter tobacco laws

  • By Lin Hui-chin, Wu Liang-yi and Liu Tzu-hsuan / Staff reporters, with staff writer
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Protecting teenagers from being exposed to tobacco at an early age is one of the main focuses of new proposed amendments to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (菸害防制法), Health Promotion Administration Director-General Wu Chao-chun (吳昭軍) said.

  In an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on Thursday, Wu discussed the draft amendments, which include a proposal to raise the legal age for smoking from 18 to 20.

  The proposed age adjustment was made, because the earlier teenagers start to use tobacco products, the higher the chance of them becoming addicted, he said, adding that similar amendments have been made in Singapore, Thailand and the US.

  

  Health Promotion Administration Director-General Wu Chao-chun poses for a photograph during an interview in Taipei on Thursday last week.

  Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

  Some countries have even set the legal smoking age at 21, he said.

  The proposed amendments also seek to expand the list of places where smoking is completely prohibited by including venues such as infant care centers, kindergartens, and college and university campuses.

  Asked whether implementation of the proposal to raise the legal smoking age could be properly policed, Wu said that there are at least 100 inspectors nationwide tasked with the matter, and the agency would cooperate with other ministries to help with the process.

  The agency would also ask members of civic groups to purchase tobacco to ascertain whether store staff check the age of customers, Wu said.

  The agency would continue to analyze the causes of adolescent smoking and organize publicity campaigns to educate people about the hazards of tobacco use using different methods adjusted for each target group, he added.

  The proposals also aim to impose stricter rules for cigarettes, Wu said.

  According to the proposed amendments, health warning text and images may not cover less than 85 percent of the cigarette packaging’s surface, up from 35 percent at present, he said.

  The planned adjustment is in line with international trends, as the WHO has said that printing large warning text and images on tobacco packaging is an economic and straightforward way to warn people against smoking, Wu said.

  At present, 122 countries stipulate that warning text and images should cover more than 50 percent of a cigarette pack’s surface area, Wu said.

  However, some smokers have questioned the planned amendment, saying that enlarging the warnings infringes their rights.

  Wu said that the warning label should serve as a motivation for smokers to quit smoking and help children to better understand the hazards of tobacco use.

  The dangers of smoking are well documented, but manufacturers often use additives or change the manufacturing process for tobacco products, in which case the government would demand that manufacturers submit a health risk assessment, he said.

  Another key draft amendment to the act would be to “ban e-cigarettes and regulate heated tobacco products,” Wu said.

  “E-cigarettes are not cigarettes,” and the government is striving to ban the products altogether, he said.

  There are many harmful substances in e-liquids, which are heated in e-cigarettes and turned into vapor, he said, adding that 15 thousand additives are known to be used in producing the liquid.

  Acute lung injuries and even deaths after using e-cigarettes have been reported around the world, he said.

  In Taiwan, six lung injuries that might be linked to the use of e-cigarettes have been reported since 2020, the year Taiwan began handling such reports, Wu said.

  E-cigarettes are excluded from the current regulations, so shops that sell them illegally can get away with selling ones that do not resemble tobacco products, he said.

  Polls have found that nearly 70 percent of Taiwanese are in favor of banning e-cigarettes, Wu said.

  The government would also introduce tight regulations on heated tobacco products as they are categorized as tobacco products by the WHO, Wu said.

  In the proposed amendments, heated tobacco products are defined as “other tobacco products.”

  Wu said the government would assess their health risks using the mechanism adopted by the US Food and Drug Administration.

  Should the proposed amendments pass, products on the market would have to be examined and approved by government agencies before they could be sold.

  The proposed amendments say that heated tobacco products can only be manufactured or imported if they are found to be less hazardous than traditional tobacco products, Wu said, adding that a supervising mechanism would be put in place for those products.

  “All tobacco products are harmful to [a person’s] health,” Wu said, adding that he hopes that stricter regulations can effectively reduce the percentage of people who smoke.

  Additional reporting by Yang Yuan-ting and Chiu Chih-jou
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Chinese man captured on a rubber boat

  • 2

    Starlux Airlines to apply to join Oneworld alliance

  • 3

    Manila pulls ship from Sabina Shoal

  • 4

    Trump is right about World War III, but wrong about the analysis

  • 5

    Tropical storm to bring rain later this week