Misuse of Drugs Act 1977

Amendment of Pharmacopoeia Act, 1931.

35

35.(1) The Pharmacopoeia Act, 1931, is hereby amended as follows:

(a) section 2 (1) shall be construed and have effect as if the reference therein to the Council were a reference to the Minister for Health;

(b) the following subsection shall be substituted for subsection (2) of section 2:

“(2) The Minister for Health may by regulations make such modifications (by way of deletion, addition or amendment) in the British Pharmacopoeia for the time being in force in Great Britain as he thinks fit.”;

(c) the following subsection shall be substituted for subsection (2) of section 3:

“(2) A certificate endorsed on a book purporting to be a copy of the British Pharmacopoeia and purporting to be signed by an officer of the Minister for Health that such book is a copy of the British Pharmacopoeia in force in Great Britain on a specified day or days, or during a specified period, shall in any legal proceedings until the contrary is shown be admitted as evidence of the facts so certified, and in such proceedings it shall not be necessary to prove the signature of the person purporting to sign the certificate or that the person was an officer of the said Minister.”; and

(d) the following new section shall be inserted after section 4:

“Regulations.

4A.—Every regulation made under this Act shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is made and, if a resolution annulling the regulation is passed by either such House within the next twenty-one days on which that House has sat after the regulation is laid before it, the regulation shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to anything previously done thereunder.”.

(2) As on and from the specified day section 4 of the Pharmacopoeia Act, 1931, shall be construed and have effect as if—

(a) or the European Pharmacopoeia” were inserted after “Saorstát Éireann Pharmacopoeia” in subsection (1), and

(b) the following subsection were added to the section:

“(3) In this section ‘the European Pharmacopoeia’ means the Pharmacopoeia elaborated under the auspices of the Council of Europe in pursuance of the Convention in that behalf done at Strasbourg on the 22nd day of July, 1964.”.

(3) In this section “the specified day” means the day specified for the purposes of this section in a notice published by the Minister in the Iris Oifigiúil.