The government should overhaul the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (菸害防制法) in accordance with the WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control and ban all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship ahead of World No Tobacco Day on Friday, anti-smoking groups said yesterday.
The groups said the government has not done enough to tackle the country’s high cigarette consumption, especially among teenagers. They said that merely increasing the health and welfare surcharge on tobacco products, as stipulated by a recent amendment to the act, was not the right strategy.
The groups included the John Tung Foundation, the Homemakers United Foundation, the National Federation of Teachers Unions and the Taiwan International Medical Alliance
Photo: CNA
“The recent amendment to the act has implemented a higher tobacco surcharge, but smoking prevention is not just about taxing consumption,” John Tung Foundation chief executive officer Yau Sea-wain (姚思遠) said.
He added that the tobacco industry should be the main target of government prevention measures, particularly by implementing policies to rein in the industry’s marketing tactics.
National Federation of Teachers Unions secretary-general Lee Ya-ching (李雅菁) said that health warnings on cigarette packaging in Taiwan are the smallest and most moderate among the 63 countries that display such warnings, occupying only 35 percent of packaging.
“Public displays of tobacco products should also be banned,” Lee said. “Taiwan has more than 10,000 convenience stores that are open 24 hours a day, all with a wall displaying colorful cigarette packs behind the cashier. These displays are implicitly inciting young people to consume the products as smokers do not need the display to determine what they need.”
Homemakers United Foundation chairperson Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) said that while the smoking rate among adults decreased from 20 percent in 2009 to 9.1 percent in 2011 — after smoking bans in indoor public spaces and workplaces were implemented and the tobacco tax raised by 10 percent — total cigarette consumption increased from 2.018 billion packs to 2.022 billion in the same period.
“Who consumed the extra cigarettes?” Chen asked, saying it was teenagers who accounted for the rise in consumption, as smoking rates in that age group remained relatively unchanged during the two-year period.
Taiwan International Medical Alliance secretary-general Huang Song-lih (黃嵩立) said tobacco advertising and promotion has not been effectively regulated.
“The packaging itself is a type of advertisement,” said Huang, urging the government to introduce tougher packaging regulations and ban tobacco sponsorship to curb tobacco industry lobbying.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International