"LATEST EDITION."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 145, 21 June 1934, Page 11

"LATEST EDITION."

DRUG STANDARDS.

MAGISTRATE'S RULING. WHAT REGULATIONS MEAN. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. An interpretation of the regulations governing drug standards was given by .Mr. E. Page, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court when dismissing the case against Frank Rathbone, grocer, who was charged with selling liquid paraffin which did not comply with the standard prescribed. It was admitted, said Mr. Fage, that the bottle of paraffin sold complied with the standard prescribed by the 1911 edition of the British Pharmacopoeia and that it did not comply with the standard in the next edition of the British Pharmacopoeia in 1932, which required a somewhat heavier consistency in liquid paraffin. A regulation made under tlie Sale of Foods and Drugs Act, 1008, and gazetted in 1024, stipulated that drugs which were included in the latest edition, with amendments, of the British Pharmacopoeia, must conform to tlie descriptions and tests respectively prescribed therein unless otherwise standardised. The magistrate held that the latest edition, with amendments, of the British Pharmacopoeia meant the latest edition existing at the time the regulation was made, i.e., the 1014 edition. That wa? the plain and natural meaning of the words used, and that construction avoided anomalies and the injustice that would follow the construction contended for on behalf of tho prosecution. For example, if the view of the prosecution were correct, the moment a new edition appeared in England, chemists and grocers in New Zealand would be com-1 mitting offences by selling any drug the standard of which had been in any way altered by the new British Pharmacopoeia, although they had no opportunity of seeing the publication or of knowing its contents. I

"There is another and potent reason for adopting the construction I have placed on tho regulation," said Mr. Page. "The Statute delegates to the Governor-General-m-Council power to make regulations. It is well established that such power cannot bo delegated to anyone else. A regulation which, without qualification, purported to delegate to future publishers and the British Pharmacopoeia the duty of prescribing the standard of drugs in New Zealand would, in my opinion, be ultra vires. Tho Court should not lightly adopt a construction which would have the effect of declaring the regulation invalid."