About 97 percent of parents responding to a survey want all novel tobacco products banned, a civic organization said yesterday, adding that an estimated 73,000 teenagers in Taiwan use e-cigarettes or other such products.
The survey, conducted by the National Alliance of Parents Organizations, showed that the majority of parents were unsatisfied with a proposal to ban only some novel tobacco products, the alliance said at a news conference in Taipei, which was held to coincide with Children’s Day yesterday.
An amendment that is being officially reviewed would ban conventional oil-based e-cigarettes, but allow the sale of heated tobacco products, which heat processed tobacco leaves, it said.
Photo: CNA
Allowing the sale of heated tobacco products would be a loophole that could potentially cause harm to Taiwanese teenagers, it said, adding that this would work against years of efforts to limit tobacco use among Taiwanese minors.
The survey found that 97.5 percent of respondents wanted conventional e-cigarettes banned, 95.5 percent wanted heated tobacco products banned, and 96.7 percent wanted all types of novel tobacco products banned, it said.
In Japan, South Korea and most US states, where all novel tobacco products are legal to sell to adults, the number of adolescents using such products rose sharply within a few years of their entry to the market, it said.
A similar trend is being observed in Taiwan. There were about 57,000 young people in 2019 reporting regular use of conventional e-cigarettes, and 16,000 using heated tobacco products — a total of 73,000 teenagers using novel tobacco products, it said.
“Although cigarette use has declined, we are seeing an overall increase in the use of tobacco products,” National Taiwan University Hospital physician Kuo Fei-ran (郭斐然) said.
A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study in 2020 found that e-cigarettes were the cause of at least 2,807 people being hospitalized for lung damage, and 68 deaths in the US the previous year, he said.
A Japanese study also showed that heated tobacco products present the same level of risk of lung damage from acute pneumonia as e-cigarettes, he said.
The survey was conducted over 12 days from March 13 to March 25, and collected 3,541 valid samples, the alliance said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching