The Ministry of Health has admitted it incorrectly threatened vape retailers for selling non-compliant products.<\/p>\n
In October 2022, in response to an inquiry from\u00a0Fair Go<\/i>, the ministry took the position that the smokefree regulations prescribed a maximum nicotine salt strength of 50mg\/mL (28.5mg\/mL nicotine strength) and threatened to cancel all products that did not comply.<\/p>\n
However, the regulations actually set the maximum nicotine strength limit of 50mg\/mL.<\/p>\n
Specialist Vape Retailer VAPO | alt. said its repeated requests to meet with the ministry were refused.<\/p>\n
So in March it took the ministry to court, on the basis that the ministry’s interpretation of the regulations was incorrect and unlawful.<\/p>\n
VAPO director Ben Pryor was concerned the misinterpretation would adversely impact the health of people who relied on 50mg\/mL nicotine products to abstain from smoking.<\/p>\n
In August, the ministry confirmed that VAPO’s interpretation of the regulations was correct, conceded the proceeding, and the Court made a declaration in favour of VAPO.<\/p>\n
The government has since amended the regulations to lower the maximum nicotine strength to 28.5 mg\/mL from 21 March 2024.<\/p>\n
Whether the ministry is able to lawfully reduce the limit is currently before the Court.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Health has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n
Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ministry of Health has admitted it incorrectly threatened vape retailers for selling non-compliant products. In October 2022, in response to an inquiry from\u00a0Fair Go, the ministry took the position that the smokefree regulations prescribed a maximum nicotine salt strength of 50mg\/mL (28.5mg\/mL nicotine strength) and threatened to cancel all products that did not comply. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7621,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7618\/revisions\/7621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}