SALE OF A.P.C. TABLETS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25608, 24 September 1948, Page 3

SALE OF A.P.C. TABLETS

COURT OF APPEAL CASE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 23. The Court of Appeal reserved its decision to-day on an appeal involving the legality of the sale of A.P.C. tablets in shops other than those of registered chemists. The Pharmacy Act, 1939, makes it an offence for anyone but a registered chemist to sell certain drugs listed in section--32 of that act. A test case was brought by Charles Edward Wynne, registrar of the Pharmacy Board, Wellington, against Woolworths (New Zealand), Ltd., to determine whether A.P.C. tablets fell within section 32 of the act and were, therefore, prohibited from being sold in businesses such as chain stores.

The case was heard by Mr J. S. Hanna, S.M., in Wellington, who held that A.P.C. tablets, being a compound of acetyl salicylic acid, phenacetin, and caffeine, were a drug to which section 32 of the Pharmacy Act applied and, therefore, such tablets could be sold only by registered chemists. Woolworths, Ltd., have appealed against this judgment as erroneous in point of law.

In Court to-day, co’ sei for the appellant submitted that the tablets were not included in the definition of the term drug when the Pharmacy Act came into force, and alternatively, that the tablets were among the drugs specified as exempted from the provisions of the Pharmacy Act.

Counsel further submitted that A.P.C. tablets when sold by Wool worths were sold under the registered name and trademark of "Pitt and Partners.” a Woolworths trademark, and were, therefore, a proprietary medicine, and as such, exempted from the provisions of section 32 of the Pharmacy Act.