The number of people using smoking cessation services fell by 150,000 in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Promotion Administration (HPA) data showed.
Agency figures showed that 491,127 people sought such services in 2015.
The number rose to more than 750,000 in 2018 before dropping to 480,000 in 2020.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
A similar trend can been seen in the US, where data from the American Psychological Association suggest that the number of people calling the smoking cessation hotline in 2020 was the lowest since 2007.
The administration offers subsidies to people who want to access medicines to help quit smoking, HPA Director-General Wu Chao-chun (吳昭軍) said on Sunday.
The subsidies have been funded by the health and welfare surcharge on tobacco since 2002, providing up to NT$200 per service for people to quit smoking by taking drugs prescribed by a doctor, he said.
The latest adjustment to the policy waives the cost of the drugs, which were used by an average of 93,000 people every year over the past three years, meaning that people who seek the service can save about NT$1,200 per year, Wu said.
Nicotine could alter the nervous system in the long term, and cause reliance on and desire for tobacco products, Cathay General Hospital Department of Chest Medicine director Wu Chin-tung (吳錦桐) said.
Nicotine gums and skin patches are used as nicotine replacements to help reduce withdrawal effects that might occur when people stop smoking, he said.
About half of the smokers who quit do so without the help of such medicines, he added.
The most important factor in quitting smoking is determination and having a plan, Wu Chin-tung said, adding that the overall success rate of the smoking cessation service was 30 percent.
Administration official Liu Chia-hsiu (劉家秀) quoted the WHO as saying that smoking exacerbates respiratory diseases and raises the possibility of spreading pathogens from the hands to the mouth.
Liu called on smokers to try to quit smoking during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the disease can increase the risk of developing severe symptoms or dying.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
RSS