The New Zealand appeal court has ruled that a traditional healing centre cannot continue to operate under the name Green Pharmasy (PJ, March 25, p457).
Judgment was given in favour of the Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand which had appealed against an earlier decision at Tauranga district court that a Pharmacy Act 1970 restriction on the use of the title "pharmacist" did not apply to the business because no-one would mistake it for a pharmacy.
The New Zealand society's journal recently reported that the ruling meant that any business which wished to call itself a pharmacy, however spelt, would have to be owned by, and be under the control of, a pharmacist.
The society's registrar (Mr James Thompson) said that all New Zealand websites that described their business as "pharmacy" would now be checked so that the public could be sure that they were dealing with pharmacists.