Court to decide if tea is medicine or food

Press, 14 February 1986, Page 26

Court to decide if tea is medicine or food

PA Auckland Is a brand of tea which claims to help you lose weight a medicine or a food?

If it is either, should the Health Department have stopped the Diet Tea Company from advertising its product as a weight-reducing drink? That is what Mr Justice Henry must decide in the High Court. The company’s counsel, Mr Michael Crew, said that his client began distributing the tea last year but the Health Department suggested it infringed the Medicines Act 1981. The company’s legal advice said the department was wrong. As the matter could not be agreed on, the company decided to seek clarification through the courts and has stopped advertising its product as a slimming aid, although

it is still available in shops. The question raised is whether the tea, which is substantially devoid of nutritional value yet is claimed to be effective for therapeutic purposes, is a “related product” under the Medicines Act 1981.

Mr Crew said it was not.

The term “related product” means any cosmetic or dentrifice or food which claims to have therapeutic purposes.

Mr Crew said tea was not a food. He supported this argument with a 1918 Defence of the Realm food hoarding law. In this case a Mrs Ellen Hinde was found to have 122 pounds and four ounces of tea at her home. Her defence argued that tea was not food as it did not sustain or nourish. It was purely

a stimulant. The justices presiding over the case agreed, saying tea leaves were not used as food by man.

However, the AttorneyGeneral’s counsel for the Health Department, Mr Chris McGuire, said the Medicines Act was derived from the Food and Drug Act, 1969, which defined food as any article used as food or drink for human beings, even though food was not defined in the later Medicines Act. As the new act was intended to deal with all the matters formerly in the old act, Mr McGuire argued that even though food was not defined it was still a drink under the old act.

Mr Justice Henry said, before reserving decision, that the case was not without its difficulties.