4.4
Report on an
Ordinance intituled An Ordinance to consolidate and amend the law relating to the Registration of Phar- maceutical Chemists and to the Regulation of the
Sale and Use of Poisons.
362
The occasion of the introduction of this ordinance was the
despatch of the Right Honourable The Secretary of State for the
the Colonies whick-was dated, 22nd lay, 1914, and which directed the
re-enactment of Part III of the Opium Ordinance, 1909. The
provisions of this part were not re-enacted in the Opium ordi-
nance, 1914. The practical effect of this omission was for
two reasons not so serious as might have been expected. In the
first place, the regulations made under the "harmacy Ordinance,
1908, and published in the Hongkong Gazette of the 17th April, 1914, had the effect of restricting the supply and possession
of morphine. In the second place prosecutions for injecting
morphine have always been extremely rare and it always easier to
prove possession than injection.
is
As the subject of the injection and sale of morphine and
cocaine appeared to be more cognate to the Pharmacy and Poisons
Ordinances than to the Opium ordinance, and as the Pharmaoy
and Poisons Ordinance obviously required consolidation, it was
decided that the new legislation should take the form of an
amendment of the latter Ordinances, and not of an amendment of the
Opium Ordinance, 1914.
As this is mainly a consolidating and re-enacting Ordinance,
and as the sources of the various sections are indicated in the
table annexed to this Report, it seems unnecessary to refer in
detail to each section, but there are one or two points which
require explanation.