E-cigarettes are an emerging global health hazard issue. The industry often attracts children and adolescents as vitamin bars, e-juices, etc., and sells them through the Internet rapidly. In order to prevent the proliferation of e-cigarettes, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has mobilized inter-ministerial meetings to convene various ministries to work together to comprehensively prevent the harm of e-cigarettes. We hope that with everyone’s efforts join together, whenever we suspect information on illegal e-cigarette sales, call the toll-free line 0800-285-000 to report them.

Emerging tobacco products are highly attractive to young people!
According to the US National Youth Tobacco Survey [1], the prevalence of e-cigarette use among junior and senior high school students in the United States has soared to 4.9% and 20.8% in 2018, compared with 2012, the growth was about 4.5 times (from 1.1% to 4.9%) and 7.4 times (from 2.8% to 20.8%) respectively. After the release of such products, the usage rate has risen sharply, and the majority of users are teenagers.
The same situation also happened in Taiwan. According to the results of the 107 Health Promotion Agency's Youth Smoking Behavior Survey:
(1) The smoking rate of e-cigarettes among junior and senior high school students was 1.9% and 3.4% respectively, which was much higher than the 0.6% smoking rate of adults.
(2) The rates of both junior and senior high school students using cigarettes and e-cigarettes at the same time are 0.8% and 1.9%, which are also greater than 0.5% of adults.
(3) 37% and 20.9% of junior and senior high school students who use electronic cigarettes have never smoked.
The above-mentioned research and the survey results in Taiwan shown that emerging tobacco products are far more attractive to young people than adults. Even if Japan, South Korea, the United States and other countries ban the product from being sold to minors, it cannot prevent the use of young people from rising; in the case that e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products are not made open to the public in Taiwan, the use rate of teenagers is already higher than that of adults, and a large proportion of users are those who have never smoked. In order to protect the health of teenagers, we should oppose the import and sale of emerging tobacco products.

Emerging tobacco products lead to dual use and it is almost impossible to quit
According to the results of 1,102 e-liquids tested by the Food and Drug Administration in 2018, the detection rate of nicotine was 80.9%. Any e-cigarettes contain nicotine are managed with drugs, if they are manufactured or imported without approval, they may violate the relevant provisions of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act of counterfeit drugs or drug prohibitions. The maximum penalty is a fixed-term imprisonment of not more than ten years and a fine of not more than 100 million NTD. We hereby appeal to the public not to try the law by themselves.
In addition, the WHO has issued a statement that all forms of tobacco products, including emerging tobacco products, are harmful to the human body. According to research, in addition to the addictive properties of nicotine, emerging tobacco products also contain formaldehyde and other carcinogenic or harmful substances.
According to research in the United States, about 59% of adults and adolescents and 76.3% of e-cigarette users are dual users [2]. Dual users have two different sources of poisons, which are more harmful to the body than a single cigarette, and it is almost impossible to quit. Another study by Professor Chen Wei-Jian of National Taiwan University (2017) pointed out that teenagers who use e-cigarettes have a higher proportion of drug abuse than teenagers who do not use cigarettes (9.5% and 0.3%, respectively) [3].

Say No to e-cigarettes and protect the health of young people
There is no safe dose of smoke exposure. As long as smoke is inhaled, it is harmful to your health. Do not try anything that is addictive or has unknown ingredients. In addition to preventing e-cigarettes through inter-ministerial mobilization, if anyone finds information about illegal e-cigarette trafficking, he may call the toll-free hotline 0800-285-000 to report.

References:
1. 2018NYTS Data: A Startling Rise in Youth E-cigarette Use. https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/youth-and-tobacco/2018-nyts-data-startling-rise-youth-e-cigarette -use
2. Tingting Yao(2017) Relationship between spending on electronic cigarettes, 30-day use, and disease symptoms among current adult cigarette smokers in the U.S.
3. Wei J. Chen(2017) Differences in prevalence, socio-behavioral correlates, and psychosocial distress between club drug and hard drug use in Taiwan: Results from the 2014 National Survey of Substance Use