Germany: Court Rules E-liquids are a Tobacco Product

Source from:  Tobacco Journal  06/26/2013

A Frankfurt district court classified currently unregulated e-liquids as a tobacco product in a landmark case that is headed for Germany's highest civil appeals court, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
 
Described as a platform to put the issue before the high court, the Frankfurt court's ruling rejected assertions by state prosecutors that e-liquids contain amounts of nicotine that are potentially dangerous, and that the defendant marketed an illegal pharmaceutical product. The lower court instead fined the seller of e-liquids and e-cigarettes EUR 8,100 (USD 10,600) for dealing in an unauthorised tobacco product, the newspaper reported.

Next stop is the Bundesgerichtshof, the federal court of appeals, which may again rule on whether e-liquids are pharmaceutical or tobacco products. The European Union, which is revising its Tobacco Product Directive, has proposed declaring nearly all e-cigarettes containing liquid nicotine as pharmaceuticals.

There are about 2 million e-cigarette users in Germany, the newspaper reported. Enditem