Tobacco company broke law: NGOs

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) yesterday accused a tobacco company of deliberately breaking the law by failing to label nicotine content on heated tobacco products, and urged authorities to step up enforcement after the items were ordered pulled from shelves last week.

Many have asked why the tobacco company would prefer “being fined NT$5 million (US$162,702) rather than labeling the nicotine content and complying with the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (菸害防制法),” Lin Ching-li (林清麗), director of the Tobacco Control Division at the John Tung Foundation, said at a news conference in Taipei.

Lin and representatives from 12 other NGOs at the news conference urged tougher enforcement after the Health Promotion Administration ordered eight types of heated tobacco products — all from the same company — pulled from shelves on Friday last week, their first day on sale.

Photo: CNA

The eight products were Taiwan’s first legally approved heated tobacco products to reach the market, but were quickly pulled from shelves after inspectors found the packaging did not list nicotine content as required by law.

Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) on Saturday said that the company had submitted samples for review and “the samples were labeled with nicotine content.”

Shih also said authorities are investigating where the process failed, why the products differed from the submitted samples and that fines would be imposed once responsibility is established.

Guo Fei-ran (郭斐然), an attending physician in the Department of Family Medicine at National Taiwan University Hospital, cited a paper last year in the online academic journal Toxics, which examined heated tobacco products sold in nine nations and found that they contained an average of 4.7mg of nicotine per stick.

“That exceeds Taiwan’s legal limit of 1.0mg [per stick],” Guo said, adding that a document published by the tobacco company involved in the case indicated that its heated tobacco products contain 18mg to 20mg of nicotine per gram of tobacco, equivalent to approximately 4.3mg to 6mg per stick.

Describing it as an “unspeakable secret,” Lin said that if the tobacco company complied with the law by labeling nicotine content on heated tobacco, it might not be able to sell its products in Taiwan as they exceed the legal limit.

“Multinational tobacco companies generate about NT$180 billion a year in Taiwan’s tobacco market, so they have money and power,” she said, adding that such resources can “make things go their way,” and making a NT$5 million fine negligible by comparison.

Following their removal from the shelves, some of the heated tobacco products were sent for testing to determine whether their nicotine content meet the stipulated standards.