RIGID CONTROL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20361, 19 July 1934, Page 5

RIGID CONTROL.

The Sale of Poisons in New Zealand. GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSALS. (“Star” Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, July 19. The most rigid official control over the sale of poisons in the Dominion is proposed to operate from April 1, 1935, under the provisions of the Poisons Bill introduced in the House yesterday in the charge of the Hon J. A. Young. All wholesale dealing in poisons is to be confined to the following classes, who will be entitled to obtain licenses renewable annually: Chemists, medical practitioners, veterinary surgeons, dentists and the holders of a storekeeper’s poison license or storekeeper’s “ extended poison license.”

Poisons are classified into four schedules of the Bill, the first two containing the lists of the most dangerous. Schedule 3 comprises preparations and mixtures of tobacco, arsenic and other poisons, if labelled and described as for use exclusively in agriculture, for the destruction of animal and insect pests, fungi and bacteria, for use as sheep dip or sheep wash or as weed killer. Storekeepers' Licenses.

A storekeeper’s poison license will entitle the holder to sell any of the preparations indicated in Schedule 3. An extended storekeeper’s license will also cover the more dangerous poisons of the first two schedules, as indicated in future regulations, but this license is subject to the condition that if any chemist notifies the registrar that he has commenced, business within five miles by the nearest practicable route from any open shop where the more dangerous poisons are being sold undel the terms of a storekeeper’s extended license, the registrar will give the storekeeper six months’ notice that the extended license will be discontinued.

Elaborate provisions are being made for the adequate packing and labelling

of poisons, one being that the label must include an indication of the appropriate antidote if the poison is consumed in error by a human being. Arsenic is to be specially tinted with a proportion of soot, while strychnine is to be indicated by a red tinge caused by adding specified colouring matter. Records of sales are to be kept, and control begins before the poisons are landed, as there are several sections prescribing the duties of masters of ships, who must permit official inspection of the poison prior to its removal from the place of stowage. Persons making false statements regarding poisons are liable to a fine of £IOO, or three months’ imprisonment, while the general penalty for breaches of the law will be £lO, the minimum fine to be at least one-fourth of the maxim^im.