NEW ZEALAND
The New Zealand Ministry of Health says Philip Morris International’s (PMI) iQOS device is illegal.
The iQOS was launched at an event at an upmarket waterfront venue in Auckland in December 2016 and a job advertisement called for people to market it in centers across New Zealand, including Queenstown and Dunedin. At that time the ministry said it was in discussions with Philip Morris over the product, but stopped short of saying it was illegal.
The ministry has now clarified its position, saying that while the battery-powered holder is legal, the tobacco sticks, called Heets, are not, because the tobacco in them is heated as opposed to burnt. ‘’In our view, Heets products are prohibited for sale in New Zealand under the Smoke-Free Environments Act.’’
However, a PMI New Zealand spokesman said the company remained confident Heets complied with the Smoke-Free Environments Act. ‘’As previously stated, the section of the law referenced by the Ministry was put in place in the 1990s to address chewing tobacco and has nothing to do with heated tobacco or e-cigarettes,’’ he said.PMI recently announced that more than 1 million smokers around the world had converted to iQOS.