Onceupon, on 23 February 2012 - 02:24 AM, said:
Crossbow, on 25 September 2010 - 12:11 AM, said:
It's almost certainly illegal to import though.
But is it?
And I wonder why admin seem convinced that the handling of nicotine over 75mg/ml without a licence is illegal, when our Katherine knows of no such legal restriction.
Hmmm... interesting question.
Poisons Act 1972 said:
Regulation of sale of poisons.
(1)Subject to the provisions of this Act, it shall not be lawful—
(a)for a person to sell any non-medicinal poison which is a substance included in Part I of the Poisons List, unless—
(i)he is a person lawfully conducting a retail pharmacy business, and
(ii)the sale is effected on premises which are a registered pharmacy, and
(iii)the sale is effected by, or under the supervision of, a pharmacist;
(b)for a person to sell any non-medicinal poison which is a substance included in Part II of the Poisons List, unless—
(i)he is a person lawfully conducting a retail pharmacy business and the sale is effected on premises which are a registered pharmacy, or
(ii)his name is entered in a local authority’s list in respect of the premises on which the poison is sold;
©for a person to sell any non-medicinal poison, whether it is a substance included in Part I or in Part II of the Poisons List, unless the container of the poison is labelled in the prescribed manner—
(i)with the name of the poison, and
(ii)in the case of a preparation which contains a poison as one of its ingredients, with the prescribed particulars as to the proportion which the poison contained in the preparation bears to the total ingredients, and
(iii)with the word “poison” or other prescribed indication of the character of the article, and
(iv)with the name of the seller of the poison and the address of the premises on which it is sold.
(2)Subject to the provisions of this Act—
(a)it shall not be lawful to sell any non-medicinal poison which is a substance included in Part I of the Poisons List to any person unless that person is either—
(i)certified in writing in the prescribed manner by a person authorised by the Poisons Rule to give a certificate for the purposes of this section, or
(ii)known by the seller or by a pharmacist in the employment of the seller at the premises where the sale is effected,
to be a person to whom the poison may properly be sold;
(b)the seller of any such poison shall not deliver it until—
(i)he has made or caused to be made an entry in a book to be kept for that purpose stating in the prescribed form the date of the sale, the name and address of the purchaser and of the person (if any) by whom the certificate required under paragraph (a) above was given, the name and quantity of the article sold, and the purposes for which it is stated by the purchaser to be required, and
(ii)the purchaser has signed the entry.
(3)Subject to the provisions of this Act, it shall not be lawful for a non-medicinal poison to be exposed for sale in, or to be offered for sale by means of, an automatic machine.
Now, if you check the list you'll find that "Nicotine; its salts and quarternary compounds" is a Part II poison, but with an exemption listed of "Some preparations with not more than 7½ % nicotine solution". Further reading reveals that the specific (Schedule 4) exemption that applies in this case is "...other liquid preparations, and solid preparations with a soap base, containing not more than 7.5 per cent of nicotine, weight in weight."
So far, so good; it's obvious from the Act that it's unlawful to
sell nicotine in concentrations higher than 7.5%, except in accordance with the provisions of the Act. In the 1982 (as amended) Poison Rules, it becomes clear that the
supply of nicotine is also unlawful except in accordance et cetera.
What I can't for the life of me find is anything in the legislation rendering unlawful the
ownership or
purchase of these substances. It may well be in another enactment, but there doesn't seem to be anything in either the Poisons Act or the Rules that says you can't have the stuff for your own personal use. There are rules pertaining to storage of poisons that arguably apply to their not-for-sale-or-supply possession, but the requirements are sensible and easily met. There are rules pertaining to consigning poisons for transport but those, too, are proportionate and simple. All the controls, however, seem only to relate to in some manner giving the poison to someone else... if you should happen to have a barrel of nicotine in your cellar, it seems from a brief investigation that you can do with it what you want provided you don't harm anyone.
So, >7.5% nicotine can't be sold or supplied within the UK without licensing and whatnot, but my (admittedly cursory) examination of the legislation I've found so far seems to suggest that you can buy a drum of it from China and pour it in your ears if you want to without actually breaking the law. The
sellers might be breaking UK law by sending it to you, but - providing the packaging is adequate for consignment to transport - the worst that could be pinned on you is the commission of an unlawful act, and even that's dubious when the act is actually
perpetrated in a country where it's legal.
Of course, there may well be something elsewhere about importing or soliciting the importation of scheduled poisons - in which case you'd be committing a crime by having it brought into the country - but my interest in this doesn't really go far enough for me to make the effort to find out more about the legality of doing something that only someone completely insane would want to do anyway
Sign In
Create Account
4
Back to top
