The owner of an Auckland vape store spent the night on the phone to suppliers, checking what products he needed to pull off his shelves amid an urgent, Government-issued safety alert.
The Ministry of Health's Vaping Regulatory Authority is urging retailers to check their shelves after high nicotine levels were discovered in some products. It sent out an urgent alert to retailers and manufacturers yesterday.
Vapes in New Zealand can have up to 50mg/mL of nicotine salts – but some have been interpreting that as allowing 50mg of nicotine – which is much stronger than the law intended.
The alert tells retailers to check the labelling of their products, pull offending ones off the shelves or face enforcement action - this could be a fine of up to $400,000.
Sasan Said Mohammadi of Auckland's SVS Vape Store said when he saw the alert he felt "a little bit surprised" and got "confused".
He said regulation around vaping isn't strict enough.
"I think the Ministry of Health, they don't check anything. I'm a specialist shop, I'm a specialist web store. I haven't seen anyone since last year until now, to come to check."
Fair Go has been investigating the issue and a copy of the alert says in some cases, notifiers appear to have provided false or misleading information in their product notifications with regards to the quantity of nicotine in a product.
Action for Smokefree (ASH) NZ director Ben Youdan said it's unfair to the public.
Official notices have gone out to retailers and manufacturers to immediately pull products off shelves. (Source: 1News)
"If they're being misled and they're not getting the product they think they're getting, then that's of concern, because it's all about being transparent to the people who vape," he said.
"We've taken a very soft regulatory approach in New Zealand that does put that responsibility on the manufacturers."
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