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＜正＞Victoria,one of seven state and territories of Australia,has arguably distinguished itself being the first state in a western country to regulate the practice of Chinese medicine via statutory regulation.The Chinese Medicine Registration（CMR）Act 2000 was passed in May 2000 and shortly afterwards the Chinese Medicine Registration Board（CMRB）of Victoria was formed.The CMRB’s functions include registering practitioners on the Register of Chinese Medicine Practitioners of which there are three divisions,Chinese Herbal Medicine,Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Dispensing.Other tasks of the CMRB include setting standards of practice,receiving and dealing with complaints about practitioners,and setting educational guidelines and approving courses of study in Chinese medicine as a qualification for registration.Important changes to the Victorian Drugs and Poisons legislation occurred as a result of the CMR Act 2000 which may eventually allow access to Chinese herbs considered potentially toxic that are currently unavailable to the majority of Chinese herbalists due to their inclusion in various schedules and appendices of the national Standard for the Uniform Prescribing of Drugs and Poisons（SUSDP）and in Victoria,the Victorian Poisons List.In Victoria,Schedule 1 of the Victoria Poisons List was renamed ’Poisons of plant,animal or mineral origin that in the public interest should be available only from a person registered under the Chinese Medicine Registration Act 2000 or authorized under another Act’.One of the tasks of the CMRB will be to submit evidence in the form of a monograph for each herb they wish the Victorian Minister for Health to consider for inclusion on Schedule 1 of the Victorian Poisons List and develop quality assurance mechanism relating to raw forms of Scheduled herbs.There are a number of recent changes on the regulatory front.In July 2007 in Victoria,the Health Profession Registration Act 2005 will come into force,amalgamating all current health profession Acts in Victoria under the one Act.This Act will supercede the CMR Act 2000,though in practice the CMRB’s functions are unlikely to change greatly.On a national level,there are movements towards development of a national health practitioner regulation system under which health professions that are regulated throughout Australia would be controlled.It has not yet been decided whether Chinese medicine will be included as it only has partial regulation,being regulated only in the state of Victoria and no other state. For the profession as a whole,national registration of Chinese medicine would be advantageous for a number of reasons.National registration may provide a mechanism by which the national SUSDP could be altered in the future so that appropriately trained,registered Chinese herbal medicine practitioners in all states could apply for endorsement to use Schedule 1 herbs.It would also provide a more solid foundation from which to challenge the current inequality of funding of