The 60-day comment period for proposed rules prohibiting 27 types of chemicals commonly used for flavored tobacco products ended on Monday last week and received more than 12,000 submissions.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Health Promotion Administration (HPA) on March 22 last year proposed to ban additives to tobacco products that produce flavors such as flowers, fruit, chocolate and menthol, but the implementation was postponed after it received wide criticism.
The rules aimed to reduce smoking initiation in adolescents and young adults, the HPA said, citing studies that suggested that adolescents perceive flavored tobacco products as more appealing and less harmful than non-flavored tobacco products. However, nicotine is highly addictive and exposure can harm adolescents’ brain development.
The HPA’s survey in 2021 showed that 40 percent of adolescent smokers in Taiwan use flavored tobacco.
The HPA on Aug. 8 proposed to prohibit 27 types of additives, which could remove about half of the flavored cigarettes from the market. They include vanillin, maltol, ethyl maltol, benzaldehyde, menthol and heliotropin, which are commonly used for flavors such as vanilla, mint, chocolate, caramel and floral.
The proposed rules would be promulgated after comments are further discussed and finalized, and would take effect 18 months after promulgation. The manufacture, importation, presentation and sale of tobacco products containing the banned substances would be fined if the rules take effect.
An alliance of 206 groups again called for a blanket ban on all tobacco flavor additives and for the implementation to take effect sooner.
The alliance questioned why the ministry does not follow the EU, the US and other countries in banning “all” flavors, and some expressed concerns that tobacco companies might use other chemicals to create new flavors, resulting in the government forever chasing the latest products to prohibit.
The EU in 2014 passed the European Tobacco Products Directive, which prohibited the sale of cigarettes and roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco products that have characterizing flavors from May 20, 2016. After a four-year transitional period for flavors with more than a 3 percent market share, the ban on all flavored cigarettes and RYO tobaccos went into effect in May 2020, followed by a ban on flavored heated tobacco products in October last year.
The US in October 2009 also passed an act banning cigarettes with flavors other than menthol or tobacco, and in June last year it proposed to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.
However, some expressed discontent about limiting smokers’ choices of flavors, while others said a few of the banned chemicals are also used in non-flavored cigarettes, that it would be a blow to the domestic companies that export flavored cigarettes or that a ban would lead to a flourishing black market.
With the considerable amount of comments the ministry received, in support and in opposition to, as well as concerns about the actual effects of the proposed rules, it is evident that it needs to communicate better with the public.
The ministry should explain why the 27 chemicals were specifically chosen and dispel concerns that they might encompass too many or too few flavored or non-flavored tobacco products. It should also demonstrate the feasibility of implementation, such as showing that the ministry has the capacity to test the chemicals when inspecting tobacco products on the market. Additionally, the issue could be included by the Healthy Taiwan Promotion Committee in cross-ministerial discussions to balance the health and economic impacts of the bans. If the ministry is worried that an immediate blanket ban, as proposed by anti-smoking groups, might trigger a pushback by the tobacco industry or smokers, it could also propose phases for gradual transition.
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