The Portland daily press., 1899-06-19
AFTER FAKE DRUG STORES,
Pharmacy Board Reducing the
Number Of Them.
How the New Law Affects the Cocaine
Fiends.

The commissioners Of pharmacy. Messrs.
Joseph +. Young. n. W. Hsseltine and
Percy L. Lord visited Lewiston on Tues
day and made a thorough inspection Of
the drug stores In that city. AS a result
Of their visit to Lewiston that city has
lost IA fake drugEstorss. There are other
cities In the state which have fake drug
stores where more liquor Is sold than
drugs. and where there are no registered
sposhscaries.
These drug stores viii be visited in
time by the state commissioners and un-
less the law is strictly complied with
their proprietors are liable to heavy
fne. The first section of chapter 90,
which is an act to prevent Incompetent
persons from conducting the business of
an apothecary, Is as followsi
.'Section 1-From and after the passage
Of this act 1t shall not be lawful for any
person within the limits of this state to
conduct the business of an apothscary or
any part thereof, or display any drugs,
medicine, drug store fittings or furnish
inss or any sign recognized as peculiar
to . drug store TO give the appearance
Of any apothecary store or clsim TO be
or represent himself to be an apothecary.
except as hereinafter provided. I"
The requirements ara that such an
apothecary shall have been duly registered
with the commissioners and DO person
competent to fill prescriptions aud dis
pense drugs. He must hold certificate
fIom the commissioners showing that he
Ia qualified to conduct this business and
If he attempts to do drug business or
displays signs of druggist without be-
ing duly registered according to law, he
shall be liable, according to this act, 30
a fiue upon indictment OF $50 month
for every month he has violated the law
and on a second conviction shall pay
fine of s10o menth for every month of
violation of the law.
A TALK WITH MR.. HESELTINE.
A PRESS reporter had an interview
with DIV. Heseltine on Saturday regard
ing the working Of this Law and Its effect
upon the druggists In Che state. Mr..
Heseltine said thar previous to the pas
sage of this act there was no way in
which rum shop run under the guise
of drug store could be reached by the
commissioners In the larger cities of
the state there were a great many Of these
fake stores. The stores were fitted up
with bottles, mortsrs and signs usual to
the ordinary drug store, but they never
filed prescription Bor III they did it was
filed by an incompetent person. Drug
gists In this state are obliged to pass an
examination before they obtain certifi-
cate as an apothecary. These registered
men having passed rigid examination,
command good salaries In the legitimate
stores. If any of these stores which made
ten sales of liquor where one sale Of
drugs or medicine was made, hired q
registered man. it cost them good deal
and detracted greatly from the profits of
their iilegitimate business. So few of
them hired registered men though the
public:was deluded by their appearance
and fittings to bslieve that these stores
were legitimate drug stores.
1.-THE act passed by the legislature Of
last winter" said Mr.. Heseltine, sis
the best thing for the people of this state
that has ever been done in regulating
this matter. The commissioners now.
have absolute power to act in these
things. All apothecaries are requested to
renew their certificates every year, and
thus the commissioners are able to keep
track of all certificates that have been
issued and the people who are holding
them. As result Of this law 1.-THE first
section of which IL printed above), the
fake drug stores in Maine are beginning
to disappear like dew before the morn
ing's sun. There were very few Of these
stores In Portland when the law was
passed, but those which were here have
ceased to bear a resem blance to drug
stores In other cities where some of these
stores existed they have either gone out of
the drug business altogether OF
stripped from their stores all the signs
even to the drawer pulls. II Is the opin-
lon of the commissioners that there may
be few of these fake stores In some
of the cities which they have not yet WIS.,
tied, in Biddeford, for example. These
cities will be visited by the commission.
ers very soon and those places which
have not complied with the law may
then do SO m hurry. think that there
were perhaps 80 of these stores which
made q pretense of doing a legitimate
drug business which did not live up to
their pretensions The proprietors Of
these places will now be forced to hire a
registered man, and these come high. 1t
is doubtful IL many Of them find it prao-
ticable to do this and the result will be
that they viii be robbed of their cloak
and must stand out in the broad light
Of day for what they really are"
There is another provision In this act