The Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand (PSNZ) is to go to the country's High Court in an attempt to stop an alternative medicines centre describing itself as the Green Pharmasy (PJ, March 6, 1999, p311).
According to Pharmacy Today, the society has already failed to persuade the owner of the business to change the name and lost in the Tauranga district court when it tried to force the change.
The PSNZ sought a ruling against Green Pharmasy under a section of the country's Pharmacy Act 1970 that restricts the right to use the title "pharmacist" to members of the society. It lost the case because the judge took the view that the nature of the business and its advertising sign meant that no-one would mistake it for a registered pharmacy. There was no blanket prohibition on the use of the term "pharmacy" he said.
The owner of the business claimed in court that "pharmasy" was a traditional and historical term for a healing centre.