Tag: ban on e-cigarettes

  • Taiwan Health Organization Seeking to Ban Vapor Products

    Taiwan Health Organization Seeking to Ban Vapor Products

    city in Taiwan
    Credit Remi Yuan

    The director of Taiwan’s top health organization said his agency was seeking to amend the Tobacco Hazard Prevention and Control Act 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 Health Promotion Administration (HPA) received more than 4,000 letters from members of the public expressing conflicting opinions on the proposed bans, according to Deputy Director-General Wu Chao-chun yesterday .

    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, according to a story in the Taipei Times..

    The HPA hopes to submit the draft amendments to the Ministry of Health and Welfare at the end of this month, which would forward them to the Executive Yuan next month for review, he said.

  • Macau Health Bureau defends proposed ban on e-cig sales

    Macau’s Health Bureau has defended its proposed ban on local sales of e-cigarettes as part of the amendment of the tobacco control regime, saying that it does not agree with a survey suggesting that most smokers want the ability to switch to less harmful alternatives to traditional cigarettes, such as e-cigarettes.

    In a statement released on Oct. 30, the Health Bureau stated that e-cigarettes are not less harmful than traditional cigarettes, and that e-cigarettes should not be considered as an alternative to conventional tobacco products, according to a story in the Macau Business Daily.

    “To ensure public health, the government has clearly suggested regulating e-cigarettes as a tobacco product as written in the delivered bill on the amendment of the tobacco control regime, and this has already gone through the first reading in the Legislative Assembly,” the Health Bureau stated.

    The bill, which is now being reviewed by the second permanent committee of the Assembly, suggests a blanket ban on e-cigarette sales. The same bill also proposed a universal smoking ban in the city’s casinos.

    The Health Bureau’s statement followed the briefing of two Hong Kong-based consumer advocacy groups—Fact Asia and the Asian Vape Association—calling for the government and legislature to give adults the opportunity to choose e-cigarettes as a safer alternative to smoking.