PACT, Sack and The Crack: United States Shipping Update.
PACT
By now most of you will be aware of the impending fall out from recent legal enactments across the pond. The Preventing Online Sales of E-Cigarettes to Children Act whilst not entirely new, finally snuck it’s way into United States legislation buried deep within a document passing initiatives that would be difficult to oppose. A sneaky, but genius move.
The new law does two things:
1: The United States Postal Service (USPS) is instructed to create regulations prohibiting the shipment of vaping products (including accessories and parts thereof) to all domestic residential addresses within the United States.
2: The insertion of vaping products into the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act (The PACT Act is an amendment to the older federal Jenkins Act). This places category products under the remit of the ATF and places onerous taxation and reporting requirements upon vendors with serious criminal penalties for non-compliance.
The definition of the PACT Act is so broad that it goes well beyond the scope of definitions used by the FDA Deeming Rule and is unrelated to the FDA’s Tobacco and Vaping regulations. Literally anything that can be used as part of a system to create an inhalable aerosol is potentially covered. Intended use is so far an untested legal defense.
Sack
So what does this mean for your Postie’s sack? Well, initial reactions appear somewhat bleak. Fedex, UPS, DHL and many other major shipping players have followed the course taken by USPS and have deemed electronic cigarettes to be prohibited items, most definitely within a Business To Customer context. Buying a product online in the U.S and having it delivered to your door easily may now be a thing of the past. The landscape is about to shift dramatically.
The Crack
But what about Business To Business shipping and ordering from overseas? The answers remain as yet unclear. As a company who sends thousands of mod parts to United States customers each year, this is something we care about a lot. We have contacted a DHL representative directly and are awaiting confirmation of their official stance and policy. Until then we will continue to ship as normal and will update you as soon as we have a concrete response. But given the volatility and uncertainty of the present situation, we are strongly advising U.S customers to place any orders now.
We’ll do everything we can to ensure our usual seamless shipping provisions and keep you updated with news as soon as we have it.
Mutate and Survive.
Team Stealth
