New Zealand Enforcing E-Cig Ban
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Governments make tax money on cigarettes - which they lose back in healthcare anyway... I think that with ecigs, everybody profits... I just don't see the point in banning them. Either way, they state at the end of the article that it will still be possible and perfectly legal for them to order stock online - it's just the sale of ecigs that is banned. Still bad enough in my book. 
The Ministry is wrong. They cannot be purchased overseas and imported as they are a medicine, and the importation of medicines by members of the public is illegal. Basically some ....... took it into his/her head to enforce NZ's nicotine laws and the Ministry was forced to back their worker up. I can still buy all sorts of e-cig products in New Zealand today, no problem at all.
This is what Medsafe says:
This is what Medsafe says:
- Electronic cigarettes are medicines when they are supplied for use as an aid to smoking cessation and with one or more cartridges.
- Electronic cigarettes are medicines when supplied with one or more cartridges containing nicotine even if they are not represented as aids to smoking cessation.
- Electronic cigarettes are medical devices when they are supplied for use as an aid to smoking cessation and without cartridges.
- Electronic cigarettes are not therapeutic products when they are supplied as a gadget which consumers may choose to use as a social prop or as an item which is to be used interchangeably with cigarettes.
However it is my opinion that Mesafe is wrong again, by declaring e-cigs 'medicines' they have banned them from legal sale to the general public without a prescription from a doctor or psychologist. In my opinion the Ministry has been embarrassed by 1 workers insistence that the laws be abided by strictly. The Ministry would prefer to educate rather than ban or prosecute, even though they are legally entitled to do both.
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Governments make tax money on cigarettes - which they lose back in healthcare anyway... I think that with ecigs, everybody profits... I just don't see the point in banning them. Either way, they state at the end of the article that it will still be possible and perfectly legal for them to order stock online - it's just the sale of ecigs that is banned. Still bad enough in my book.
Well Shosha are still selling the e-cigs, as are all the other companies I buy from, so nobody's taking any notice of the laws, and laws nobody takes notice of aren't really laws at all, they're just inconveniences.
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If you actually read the laws in "medicines" in New Zealand there is a way e-liquid can be legally sold, used, distributed. This is an e-mail I sent to the Ministry of Health recently:
This is the LAW in regard to medicines:
"if the medicine is not an injection or eye preparation, only if the concentration of the medicine is greater than 10 milligrams per litre or per kilogram."
So nicotine the medicine can be sold in New Zealand, in e-cigs that make no therapeutic claims, provided the above provision is maintained.
10 milligrams per litre, I can see room for movement.
So I've worked it out. The hate tobacco and all smokers lobby can't legally prevent the sale of tobacco in New Zealand, so they target every opportunity the tobacco companies can exploit to make money, from nicotine. The W.H.O. effectively says the nicotine lobby, (tobacco companies) must prove their products safe, whilst at the same time dismissing all claims made by the tobacco companies that their nicotine products in e-cigs are safe.
So Medsafe will never approve an e-cig.
The rumour started, I presume, by the Ministry of Health says people can import for their own personal use Nicotine, but I can find no reference so far in the law that mentions any such dispensation.
So the law says effectively that it OK to smoke tobacco, and not OK to use any product that is not an approved smoking cessation scheme, that incorporates nicotine, even though the law says nicotine is only a medicine if the active ingredient is 10 milligrams per litre or per kilogram of whatever the nicotine is suspended in.
The devices themselves for vaporizing are legal provided they are not making any therapeutic claims. The devices can't be declared 'medicines' as they are not organic or synthetic, which is what the law regarding medicines says they must be.
Medicines Act 1981 No 118 (as at 01 July 2014), Public Act 3 Meaning of medicine, new medicine, prescription medicine, and restricted medicine – New Zealand Legislation
So Medsafe is wrong to say vaporizers are 'medicines.'
This is the LAW in regard to medicines:
"if the medicine is not an injection or eye preparation, only if the concentration of the medicine is greater than 10 milligrams per litre or per kilogram."
So nicotine the medicine can be sold in New Zealand, in e-cigs that make no therapeutic claims, provided the above provision is maintained.
10 milligrams per litre, I can see room for movement.
So I've worked it out. The hate tobacco and all smokers lobby can't legally prevent the sale of tobacco in New Zealand, so they target every opportunity the tobacco companies can exploit to make money, from nicotine. The W.H.O. effectively says the nicotine lobby, (tobacco companies) must prove their products safe, whilst at the same time dismissing all claims made by the tobacco companies that their nicotine products in e-cigs are safe.
So Medsafe will never approve an e-cig.
The rumour started, I presume, by the Ministry of Health says people can import for their own personal use Nicotine, but I can find no reference so far in the law that mentions any such dispensation.
So the law says effectively that it OK to smoke tobacco, and not OK to use any product that is not an approved smoking cessation scheme, that incorporates nicotine, even though the law says nicotine is only a medicine if the active ingredient is 10 milligrams per litre or per kilogram of whatever the nicotine is suspended in.
The devices themselves for vaporizing are legal provided they are not making any therapeutic claims. The devices can't be declared 'medicines' as they are not organic or synthetic, which is what the law regarding medicines says they must be.
Medicines Act 1981 No 118 (as at 01 July 2014), Public Act 3 Meaning of medicine, new medicine, prescription medicine, and restricted medicine – New Zealand Legislation
So Medsafe is wrong to say vaporizers are 'medicines.'
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