A year-long investigation by Tropical Public Health Services (Cairns) has led to a landmark court ruling in Cairns. In mid-2013, Tropical Public Health Services (Cairns) received a complaint regarding the alleged advertisement and sale of e-cigarettes at the James Cook University Smithfield campus. Environmental Health Officers identified the man responsible for advertising the product and arranging the sale through internet purchases, and seized about 30 millilitres of liquid nicotine. The liquid nicotine seized was so strong that one millimetre of the product seized contained four times the lethal dose for a child. On July 10, a Queensland first case for breaches of the Health (Drugs and Poisons) Regulation 1996 was heard at the Cairns Magistrates Court. The defendant entered a plea of guilty to two charges: the possession of liquid nicotine and advertising for sale regulated poison – in this case liquid nicotine used in e-cigarettes. He was ordered to pay a fine of $2500, no conviction was recorded. The verdict comes less than a month after Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young launched a state-wide warning of the dangers of inhaling liquid nicotine through dispensers such as e-cigarettes.