NZ indecisive on e-cigs

New Zealand’s government-funded stop smoking services will keep losing customers if they refuse to help people who want to try vaping, according to a press note issued by Massey University and published by Scoop.
The services are said to be in a bind, however, because the legality of selling nicotine vaping products in New Zealand remains in doubt.
The previous National-led government claimed nicotine-vaping products could not be legally imported into and sold in New Zealand, but last year promised new regulations to allow the sale of nicotine e-cigarettes and e-liquids.
Last week National MP Nicky Wagner, who championed the promised law change, introduced a private member’s bill to try to get vaping back on the Labour-led government’s agenda.
Vaping researcher, Professor Marewa Glover, of Massey University’s School of Health Sciences, said that six months into the new Labour-led government’s term, all Associate Minister of Health Jenny Salesa had said on the matter was that she didn’t know what the government’s position on e-cigarettes was going to be.
“Two weeks ago, Judge Patrick Butler dismissed a Ministry of Health case against tobacco giant Philip Morris on the grounds that the IQOS Heets product could not be considered a ‘chewing’ tobacco product, which would be banned under the Smoke-Free Environments Act [SFEA],” Glover said. “His ruling could equally apply to nicotine vaping products, meaning they can be legally imported and sold in New Zealand.
“Of greater significance, he concluded that the Ministry of Health’s prosecution, which sought to restrict smokers’ access to an alternative less harmful product was the ‘opposite of what parliament sought to achieve when passing the SFEA’.”
Judge Butler’s questioning of the health authority’s attempt to undermine people’s chance to stop smoking by switching to the use of a reduced-harm product mirrors the perceptions of vapers reported in a new research paper by Trish Fraser of Global Public Health, and Glover and Dr. Penelope Truman of Massey University’s College of Health.
The full story is at: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE1804/S00011/stop-smoking-services-called-upon-to-support-vaping.htm