Taiwan is soon to issue its first decision on whether to approve the sale of a heated tobacco product, two years after amendments to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (菸害防制法) were promulgated in March 2023.
The amended tobacco act allows a path to legalization for heated tobacco products on a case-by-case basis, Health Promotion Agency (HPA) Director-General Wu Chao-chun (吳昭軍) said yesterday.
Eleven tobacco manufacturers have submitted claims to the HPA, six of which have completed the documentation assessment phase of the approval evaluation process, Wu told a news conference.
Photo: CNA
Product testing, which composes the second phase of the evaluation, takes six months and the result of one manufacturer’s application is expected to be announced as soon as next month, he said.
The manufacturer would be authorized to commercialize their product with the appropriate labeling and health warning should it pass the assessment, he added.
If not, the manufacturer can submit product documentation again to restart the process or litigate the outcome by seeking an administrative remedy, Wu said.
Announcements of the application results would be staggered, as they did not complete the documentation phase at the same pace, he said, adding that missing or unsatisfactory documents must be rectified for the process to continue.
Separately, the Alliance of Banning Cigarettes Taiwan, a coalition of advocacy and medical groups against tobacco use, held a news conference yesterday denouncing the amended act.
Lin Ching-li (林清麗), an official at the John Tung Foundation, said the approach of banning flavored cigarettes by listing specifically prohibited additives is flawed.
Tobacco companies easily skirt the regulations by creating new substances to stay ahead of regulators, she said, adding that 90 percent of first-time smokers use a flavored product.
The WHO recommendation is to prohibit all artificial or natural flavoring agents, she said.
Bars continue to allow patrons to smoke indoors without establishing a separate smoking area as the law requires, Mother’s Shield Alliance secretary-general Tang Hsien-mei (唐仙美) said.
Members of the coalition also said that the “health risk assessment,” the HPA’s misguided name of the approval process, enables manufacturers to untruthfully advertise heated products as a less harmful alternative to cigarettes.
Tobacco product sales approval evaluation or assessment should be the correct terminology for the testing protocol, they said.
HPA Tobacco Control Division head Lo Su-ying (羅素英) said the government had comprehensively gathered the opinions of experts and medical professionals when drawing up the act.
The agency’s name for the process reflects its intended purpose of scientifically gauging a product’s public health impact, she said.
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