Poisons Act, 1919

The Poisons Act, 1919 regulates the importation, possession, and sale of poisons in Pakistan, giving provincial and federal authorities power to license and control the trade in dangerous substances. It applies to the whole of Pakistan.

Section 2 lets a Provincial Government make rules regulating the possession for sale and the sale (wholesale or retail) of any substance it specifies as a poison. Such rules can require licences to possess a poison for sale, restrict who may be licensed and who may buy, cap the quantity sold to any one person, require sellers to keep sale registers open to inspection, and require safe storage and proper labelling of containers.

Section 3 lets the Federal Government prohibit importing a specified poison into Pakistan except under licence, and regulate the grant of such import licences. Section 4 lets a Provincial Government separately regulate possession of a poison in a specific local area if that poison is being used frequently there to poison people or cattle, and can make breaching such a rule punishable with imprisonment up to one year, or a fine up to one thousand rupees, or both, plus confiscation of the poison and its containers.

Section 6 sets penalties for breaching a possession-for-sale rule, importing a restricted poison without a licence, or breaking a licence condition: on a first conviction, imprisonment up to three months or a fine up to five hundred rupees, or both; on a second or later conviction, imprisonment up to six months or a fine up to one thousand rupees, or both, with the poison and its containers liable to confiscation. Section 7 lets a District or Sub-divisional Magistrate issue a search warrant where poison is suspected to be possessed or sold unlawfully.

Section 9 exempts medical and veterinary practitioners acting in good faith within their profession, and lets a Provincial Government exempt specific commercial articles or classes of poison from the Act. This is an old, 1919 law that has been amended repeatedly through various Adaptation Orders and the Central Laws (Statute Reform) Ordinance, 1960 (with a related 1904 Act repealed in 1927), so the specific rupee amounts for fines quoted above should be checked against the current official text, as they may since have been superseded by later legislation or rules.