CHEMISTS FINED.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 141, 14 December 1908, Page 7

CHEMISTS FINED.

BREACHES OF THE OPIUM ACT. Under tho Consolidated Opium Act of 1907 purchasers of opium are obliged to keep a book recording their purchases and sales, the drug being purchased firat from the wholesale holders of permits from the Collectors of Customs. A number of Wellington chemists. Walter B. Perrott, Ralph Green, William Salek, Dunbar Sloane, William Parker, j Arthur Hobson, Leon Cohen, and C. 11. Perrott were to-day charged before Mr. Pvidd-ell, S.M., with committing a breach of the Act in failing to keep such a book as required. Mr. Myers prosecuted on behalf of the Collector of Customs. Mr. Neilsen, on behalf of several of the defendants, urged that as the opium was almost wholly used in making up various prescriptions, a record of the quantity used was kept in this way in the prescription, book. Moreover, most I drug* in which, opium was an ingredient were poisons, and a record had to be kept in the poison book. In the hurry of business, in order to avoid keeping customers waiting they had omitted to make entries. In future .his clients .would keep a proper opium book as directed by the Act. His Worship said that the onus was on the defendants to comply with the regulations. Fines of iJl^and costs £1 18s 6d were imposed on the defendants.