UPS has joined FedEx in announcing they will no longer ship vape products starting April 5. The move was prompted by the Omnibus spending bill signed last year by ex-President Trump, which contained language requiring the United States Postal Service (USPS) to create regulations within 120 days — starting in December when the bill was signed — to govern the shipment of vape products, “whether they contain nicotine or not,” according to a Vaping360 report.
The UPS ban includes all cannabis vapor products as well as tobacco.
The “Preventing Online Sales of E-Cigarettes to Children Act” requires online vape sellers to follow the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act, which presents vape sellers with a maze of federal regulations that include heavy penalties and even prison time for vendors who violate the act, according to the report.
“If the increase in shipping costs wasn’t enough, the bill also imposes huge paperwork burdens on small retailers, and backs it up with threats of imprisonment for even innocent mistakes. This is not a law designed to regulate the mail-order sale of vaping products to adults; it’s an attempt to eliminate it.” — Gregory Conley, President of the American Vaping Association, in a statement
The USPS has not yet issued its regulations but they are unlikely to improve things for online vape sellers, considering the businesses will still have to comply with the PACT act.
Under the PACT Act, vape businesses are required to:
- Register with the U.S. Attorney General and ATF
- Verify the ages of their customers
- Require an adult’s signature at the point of delivery
- Register with the federal government and states’ tobacco tax administrators
- Collect all local and state taxes, and include any required tax stamps
- In states that specifically tax vape products, send a full list of customer transactions to each state’s tax administrator, including product types and quantity
- Maintain records for five years of any interrupted or potentially illegal vape product delivery in taxing states.
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