Sales of codeine-based products need to be recorded in a Project STOP-style system to prevent people from abusing the over-the-counter drug, a pharmacist believes.
Michael Meaney, a pharmacist from north-western Tasmania, called on the Pharmacy Guild of Australia to overcome the privacy issues which have so far prevented codeine from being added to Project STOP. He expressed concern it may become a prescription-only medicine if people are able to continue buying it without real-time sales monitoring.
Mr Meaney told Pharmacy News, a number of codeine addicts were making weekly road-trips of up to 100km and stopping at pharmacies along the way to stock-up on dangerous quantities of codeine.
“People come from 100km away to buy codeine products from us,” he said.
“They do a...
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