Poisoned Weapon and Focus Pool/Area (L5R rules board)

A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.

A player, 3 October 2007

Regarding some older cards, that have Reactions, not Focus Effects, but whose triggers are related to focusing in duels...can their reactions be played from the Focus Area? For example, Poisoned Weapon:

Reaction: Play after Focus Cards have been revealed in a duel (but before duel resolution) to reduce the Chi of your opponent by 3 until the end of the turn. Lose 4 Honor. (Clarified: Duel is abandoned if a participant dies before resolution.)

If I draw a Poisoned Weapon into my Focus Pool, and then focus it into my Focus Area, when it turns face up along with any other focused cards and its trigger occurs, can I use its Reaction? I can't find anything in the SE Comprehensive Rules stating I can't, other than a reference to the Focus Area being "temporary" and "out of play". On the other hand, a Reaction is stated as being playable "at its specific trigger". This would also apply, I would presume, to other older cards like "Bend Like a Reed" or "Strike from Behind".

Chris Fuchs (rules official), 3 October 2007

Action cards do not normally enter play. Instead, they are played from the hand for one of their abilities, or used as a card to focus in a duel or to discard. Some Action cards may have special effects when the card is used for another purpose, such as focusing in a duel.

A reaction on an action card is one of those such abilities, and nothing on Poisoned Weapon allows you to use its reaction from a location other than your hand.

On: Poisoned Weapon