Food-Medicine Interface and its Application in International Level, Comparative Jurisdictions and Sri Lankan Legal Context

Abstract

There has been a growing interest in the Food-medicine interface due to its legal and commercial importance with the development of both food and medicine industries. Food and medicine--even though some foods have therapeutic (curative or preventive) properties--are two different entities, regulated by different legal regimes. Hence, the distinction between food and medicine is crucial in order to protect the interests of consumers. This study is a doctrinal review on the food-medicine interface at international level with particular reference to its application in the Sri Lankan context.

There seems to be a lack of global policy consensus or coherent legal regime regarding the food-medicine interface, and the same is true for Sri Lanka. Both Western and Ayurveda drugs are registered with the competent authorities in Sri Lanka: The National Medicines Regulatory Authority and Ayurveda Department, respectively. To register a food as a drug, these authorities can use two criteria: 1. recognised medicinal properties and 2. therapeutic (curative or preventive) purpose of consumption. The registration of a food commodity by these two competent authorities can be taken as a criterion to identify them as medicines thus, to differentiate them in a legal sense from food per se. From a legal perspective, any food not registered by one of these two authorities--irrespective of their therapeutic (curative or preventive) benefits—is considered to be simply a food. This demarcation of the food-medicine interface could be used by industries for the purpose of marketing strategies and law enforcing officers for the purposes of law enforcement.