Skip to main content Skip to office menu Skip to footer
Capital IconMinnesota Legislature

Office of the Revisor of Statutes

Chapter 151

Section 151.01

Topics

Recent History

151.01 Definitions.

Subdivision 1. Words, terms, and phrases. Unless the language or context clearly indicates that a different meaning is intended, the following words, terms, and phrases, for the purposes of this chapter, shall be given the meanings subjoined to them.

Subd. 2. Pharmacy. "Pharmacy" means an established place of business in which prescriptions, drugs, medicines, chemicals, and poisons are prepared, compounded, dispensed, vended, or sold to or for the use of patients and from which related clinical pharmacy services are delivered.

Subd. 3. Pharmacist. The term "pharmacist" means an individual with a currently valid license issued by the board of pharmacy to practice pharmacy.

Subd. 4. Repealed, 1988 c 550 s 20

Subd. 5. Drug. The term "drug" means all medicinal substances and preparations recognized by the United States Pharmacopoeia and National Formulary, or any revision thereof, and all substances and preparations intended for external and internal use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in humans or other animals, and all substances and preparations, other than food, intended to affect the structure or any function of the bodies of humans or other animals.

Subd. 6. Medicine. The term "medicine" means any remedial agent that has the property of curing, preventing, treating, or mitigating diseases, or that is used for that purpose.

Subd. 7. Poisons. The term "poisons" means any substance which, when introduced into the system, directly or by absorption, produces violent, morbid, or fatal changes, or which destroys living tissue with which it comes in contact.

Subd. 8. Chemical. The term "chemical" means all medicinal or industrial substances, whether simple or compound, or obtained through the process of the science and art of chemistry, whether of organic or inorganic origin.

Subd. 9. Board or state board of pharmacy. The term "board" or "state board of pharmacy" means the Minnesota state board of pharmacy.

Subd. 10. Director. The term "director" means the director of the Minnesota state board of pharmacy.

Subd. 11. Person. The term "person" means an individual, firm, partnership, company, corporation, trustee, association, agency, or other public or private entity.

Subd. 12. Wholesale. The term "wholesale" means and includes any sale for the purpose of resale.

Subd. 13. Commercial purposes. The phrase "commercial purposes" means the ordinary purposes of trade, agriculture, industry, and commerce, exclusive of the practices of medicine and pharmacy.

Subd. 14. Manufacturing. The term "manufacturing" except in the case of bulk compounding, prepackaging or extemporaneous compounding within a pharmacy, means and includes the production, quality control and standardization by mechanical, physical, chemical, or pharmaceutical means, packing, repacking, tableting, encapsulating, labeling, relabeling, filling or by any other process, of all drugs, medicines, chemicals, or poisons, without exception, for medicinal purposes.

Subd. 15. Pharmacist intern. The term "pharmacist intern" means (1) a natural person satisfactorily progressing toward the degree in pharmacy required for licensure, or (2) a graduate of the University of Minnesota college of pharmacy, or other pharmacy college approved by the board, who is registered by the state board of pharmacy for the purpose of obtaining practical experience as a requirement for licensure as a pharmacist, or (3) a qualified applicant awaiting examination for licensure.

Subd. 15a. Pharmacy technician. The term "pharmacy technician" means a person not licensed as a pharmacist or a pharmacist intern, who assists the pharmacist in the preparation and dispensing of medications by performing computer entry of prescription data and other manipulative tasks. A pharmacy technician shall not perform tasks specifically reserved to a licensed pharmacist or requiring professional judgment.

Subd. 16. Prescription. The term "prescription" means a signed written order, or an oral order reduced to writing, given by a practitioner licensed to prescribe drugs for patients in the course of the practitioner's practice, issued for an individual patient and containing the following: the date of issue, name and address of the patient, name and quantity of the drug prescribed, directions for use, and the name and address of the prescriber.

Subd. 17. Legend drug. "Legend drug" means a drug which is required by federal law to bear the following statement, "Caution: Federal law prohibits dispensing without prescription."

Subd. 18. Label. "Label" means a display of written, printed, or graphic matter upon the immediate container of any drug or medicine; and a requirement made by or under authority of Laws 1969, chapter 933 that any word, statement, or other information appearing on the label shall not be considered to be complied with unless such word, statement, or other information also appears on the outside container or wrapper, if any there be, of the retail package of such drug or medicine, or is easily legible through the outside container or wrapper.

Subd. 19. Package. "Package" means any container or wrapping in which any drug or medicine is enclosed for use in the delivery or display of that article to retail purchasers, but does not include:

(a) shipping containers or wrappings used solely for the transportation of any such article in bulk or in quantity to manufacturers, packers, processors, or wholesale or retail distributors;

(b) shipping containers or outer wrappings used by retailers to ship or deliver any such article to retail customers if such containers and wrappings bear no printed matter pertaining to any particular drug or medicine.

Subd. 20. Labeling. "Labeling" means all labels and other written, printed, or graphic matter (a) upon a drug or medicine or any of its containers or wrappers, or (b) accompanying such article.

Subd. 21. Federal act. "Federal act" means the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, United States Code, title 21, section 301, et seq., as amended.

Subd. 22. Pharmacist in charge. "Pharmacist in charge" means a duly licensed pharmacist in the state of Minnesota who has been designated in accordance with the rules of the state board of pharmacy to assume professional responsibility for the operation of the pharmacy in compliance with the requirements and duties as established by the board in its rules.

Subd. 23. Practitioner. "Practitioner" means a licensed doctor of medicine, licensed doctor of osteopathy duly licensed to practice medicine, licensed doctor of dentistry, licensed doctor of optometry, licensed podiatrist, or licensed veterinarian. For purposes of sections 151.15, subdivision 4, 151.37, subdivision 2, paragraph (b), and 151.461, "practitioner" also means a physician assistant authorized to prescribe, dispense, and administer under chapter 147A, or an advanced practice nurse authorized to prescribe, dispense, and administer under section 148.235.

Subd. 24. Brand name. "Brand name" means the registered trademark name given to a drug product by its manufacturer, labeler or distributor.

Subd. 25. Generic name. "Generic name" means the established name or official name of a drug or drug product.

Subd. 26. Finished dosage form. "Finished dosage form" means that form of a drug which is or is intended to be dispensed or administered to the patient and requires no further manufacturing or processing other than packaging, reconstitution, or labeling.

Subd. 27. Practice of pharmacy. "Practice of pharmacy" means:

(1) interpretation and evaluation of prescription drug orders;

(2) compounding, labeling, and dispensing drugs and devices (except labeling by a manufacturer or packager of nonprescription drugs or commercially packaged legend drugs and devices);

(3) participation in clinical interpretations and monitoring of drug therapy for assurance of safe and effective use of drugs;

(4) participation in drug and therapeutic device selection; drug administration for first dosage and medical emergencies; drug regimen reviews; and drug or drug-related research;

(5) participation in the practice of managing drug therapy and modifying drug therapy, according to section 151.21, subdivision 1, on a case-by-case basis according to a written protocol between the specific pharmacist and the individual dentist, optometrist, physician, podiatrist, or veterinarian who is responsible for the patient's care and authorized to independently prescribe drugs. Any significant changes in drug therapy must be reported by the pharmacist to the patient's medical record;

(6) participation in the storage of drugs and the maintenance of records;

(7) responsibility for participation in patient counseling on therapeutic values, content, hazards, and uses of drugs and devices; and

(8) offering or performing those acts, services, operations, or transactions necessary in the conduct, operation, management, and control of a pharmacy.

Subd. 28. Veterinary legend drug. "Veterinary legend drug" means a drug that is required by federal law to bear the following statement: "Caution: Federal law restricts this drug to use by or on the order of a licensed veterinarian."

Subd. 29. Legend medical gas. "Legend medical gas" means a liquid or gaseous substance used for medical purposes and that is required by federal law to bear the following statement: "Caution: Federal law prohibits dispensing without a prescription."

Subd. 30. Dispense. "Dispense or dispensing" means the preparation or delivery of a drug pursuant to a lawful order of a practitioner in a suitable container appropriately labeled for subsequent administration to or use by a patient or other individual entitled to receive the drug.

HIST: (5808-1) 1937 c 354 s 1; 1961 c 394 s 1; 1967 c 377 s 1,2; 1969 c 933 s 1-7; 1973 c 639 s 1,2; 1975 c 101 s 1; 1985 c 247 s 25; 1985 c 248 s 70; 1986 c 444; 1988 c 550 s 1-5; 1990 c 412 s 1,2; 1990 c 526 s 2; 1991 c 213 s 1; 1993 c 121 s 10; 1994 c 389 s 3; 1994 c 632 art 2 s 36; 1995 c 205 art 2 s 5; 1997 c 132 s 1; 1999 c 62 s 1

Official Publication of the State of Minnesota
Revisor of Statutes