Article 7. Availability and use

• 7.1 Responsible authorities should give special attention to drafting rules and regulations on the availability of pesticides. These should be compatible with existing levels of user training and expertise. The parameters on which such decisions on availability are based vary widely and must be left to the discretion of each government.
• 7.2 In addition, governments should take note of and, where appropriate, use the WHO classification of pesticides by hazard (34) as the basis for their regulatory measures and associate the hazard class with well-recognized hazard symbols. When determining the risk and degree of restriction appropriate to the product, the type of formulation and method of application should be taken into account.
• 7.3 Two methods of restricting availability can be exercised by the responsible authority: not registering a product or, as a condition of registration, restricting the availability to certain groups of users in accordance with a national assessment of the hazards involved in the use of the product.
• 7.4 Governments and industry should ensure that all pesticides made available to the general public are packaged and labelled in a manner which is consistent with the FAO guidelines on packaging and labelling (3) and with appropriate national regulations.
• 7.5 Prohibition of the importation, sale and purchase of highly toxic and hazardous products, such as those included in WHO classes Ia and Ib (34), may be desirable if other control measures or good marketing practices are insufficient to ensure that the product can be handled with acceptable risk to the user.

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