SAFEGUARDING PUBLIC HEALTH: While vaping has become increasingly popular, new legislation would widely outlaw tobacco products for e-cigarettes

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 08, 2020
By: Yang Yuan-ting / Staff reporter

Health Promotion Administration (HPA) Deputy Director-General Wu Chao-chun (吳昭軍) yesterday said his agency was seeking to amend the Tobacco Hazard Prevention and Control Act (菸害防制法) to ban the import and sale of heated tobacco products and e-cigarettes.

During the two-month preview period for the draft amendments, which ended at the end of last month, the HPA received more than 4,000 letters from members of the public expressing conflicting opinions on the proposed bans.

Letters from tobacco companies mostly criticized proposals to enlarge the warnings printed on cigarette packages to 85 percent of the front surface area and to raise the legal age for smoking from 18 to 20, Wu said.

The larger the warnings are, the less effective the tobacco companies’ advertisements would be, he said.     [FULL  STORY]