POISON RISKS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 553, 4 January 1929, Page 8

POISON RISKS

NEED FOR TIGHTENING LAW UP USE OF PROPER BOTTLES (From Our Res*4cnt Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. After a series of conferences with representatives of the commercial community the Department of Health has been forced to abandon its attempt to obtain amendment of the Poisons Act in the interests of public safety. Inquiries reveal that the attitude of the dealers in poisonous substances was sufficiently non-co-operative to make the task of the department almost impossible. Consequently, the sweeping reforms which were proposed. though supported by the Police Department, have been shelved. The most that can be hoped for appears to be regulations which will be directed toward minimising the risk of accident through poison being placed in improper containers, improperly labelled. The opinion of the department is that grocers and small dealers in poisonous substances should not have the right to break up the containers, and that the purchaser, when he removes the poison, should not empty it into a vessel which is ordinarily devoted to other things. For instance, weed-killer should not be poured into a beer bottle, or spirits of salts into a stone ginger beer bottle. Some sort of regulation to prevent this is almost certain to be the sum of the Health Department’s attempts to revise an antiquated statute, unless thopinion of the dealers changes.