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possession, sale or both of drugs under the poisons list. Worse still is that after prosecution, they can reapply for a
licence under another name and address.
While listed sellers of poisons attempt illegally to
sell Part I poisons under Schedule I, authorized sellers of poisons attempt illegally to sell Part I poisons under Schedule III without a doctor's prescription. This is not quite so easy to prove but there had been 2 such cases convicted last year.
This Bill therefore introduces amendments (1) to
forbid listed sellers of poison to dispense doctor's prescription ALTOGETHER so as to reduce such proven temptation to sell drugs on the Poisons List illegally and to plug any loopholes to the same effect; (2) to identify for the public' "authorized sellers" which engage pharmacists and can by law dispense any drugs prescribed by doctors, by allowing such sellers to display a specific logo.
The Bill goes further by (3) widening the power of forfeiture to include unregistered phamaceutical products not containing poisons and (4) allowing the Pharmacy and Poisons Board to reject applications or licence if the suitability of the persons and premises are open to question from previous conviction or for other reasons, while leaving the unscrupulous pharmacists who had committed offences subject to internal discipline by the Board. After thorough discussion the LegCo ad hoc group was satisfied with the replies from the Administration on possible criticisms on this Bill or, the possible loss of business of listed sellers when the public will in future turn to authorized sellers to dispense their prescriptions. The replies were :
(1)
that as most of the dispensing of doctor's prescriptions were done in hospitals, clinics or private doctors' surgeries anyway, the drop in business of each of the existing 2,566 listed sellers should be negligible;