Chemist Fined On Nine Charges

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30861, 21 September 1965, Page 6

Chemist Fined On Nine Charges

(New Zealand Press Association) PALMERSON NORTH, Sept. 20. A Palmerston North chemist, Arthur Thomas, was today fined £5O, with costs, on four of nine charges of selling prescription poison drugs in trade preparations other than in accordance with a prescription given by a medical practitioner, dentist or veterinary surgeon, and dispensing such drugs and failing to retain the prescriptions on the premises on which they were dispensed for three years.

On each of the other five charges of dispensing and failing to retain the prescriptions, Thomas was fined £5, with costs.

Mr R. D. Jamieson, S.’f., said the maximum fine on the four major charges was £lOO. It* was not suggested that this was a repetitive charge, or that the charges were against a man previously fined. The court would not distinguish between the four drugs concerned, because the offence was the same.

Prosecuting for the district registrar of poisons. Mr J. A. Ongley said the charges fell into two groups. Four related to the sale of prescription poison drugs and five to the dispensing of such drugs contrary to the poisons regulations.

Any person, who was a party to supplying such drugs to the public illegally accepted a very heavy responsibility, said Mr Ongley. In the defendant’s case the illegal supply within the space of a few months was on a substantial scale, and could be considered as continuous trafficking in the drugs. One of the drugs mentioned in the charges had a number of uses and misuses, and its wide use as a “pep pill” in New Zealand had given rise to concern. Nearly 7000 capsules had been sold in about seven months, and prescriptions could be produced by defendant for only five separate sales. There was no evidence in his records that any prescriptions had existed. Some of the drugs could be quite toxic as an overdose

and death could result. Another of the drugs was an oral hormone substantially used in early pregnancy tests. For the defendant, who pleaded guilty, Mr G. Rowe said the drugs were not sold in large bulk to any one person. Some of the drugs were tranquillisers, but one of the other tended to depress the appetite and reduce a person’s weight. Defendant had a fairly big practice as a chemist and, because of the difficulty of obtaining staff, he had overworked himself. He had now changed his premises and the staffiing position had improved. None of the drugs supplied was on the social security fund, Mr Rowe said.