Bill also targets flavored cigarettes by including them in banned list
Taiwan’s Cabinet on Thursday (Jan. 13) initiated an amendment bill to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act for legislation, aiming to ban e-cigarettes and flavored cigarettes, increase health hazard warning content on cigarette packages, and raise the smoking age to 20.
The proposals contained in the amendment bill include one intended to ban the manufacture, import, sale, supply, exhibition, advertisement, and use of e-cigarettes.
The bill mentions that unapproved new tobacco products, such as heated tobacco products or those already in the market, will have to be submitted to the authorities in the central government for health risk assessments, and only when they are sanctioned, can they be manufactured or imported.
The bill also proposes to increase the required area containing the health hazard warning on a tobacco product package from 35% to 85%.
Flavored cigarettes are also targeted by the bill as they are included in the banned list. The bill states that cigarettes that are laced with flower, fruit, chocolate, or mint flavors, or contain banned additives, should be banned.
The bill also proposes to raise the smoking age from 18 to 20, stating that according to an American study, as people get older, their chances of becoming addicted to tobacco will decrease. Many countries, including the U.S., Singapore, and Thailand, have raised the smoking age to at least 20 years of age, the bill says.
The areas where smoking is banned are proposed to be extended to include college campuses, kindergartens, daycare centers, and family child care homes, with bars and nightclubs being listed as no-smoking facilities but allowed to install smoking rooms.
Penalties for manufacture, import, sale, supply, exhibition, or advertisement for designated new tobacco products that have not been sanctioned by health risk assessments will be increased, so they will be heavier than penalties incurred from equivalent violations with regard to conventional cigarettes.
George Liao – Taiwan News – 2022-01-13.
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