The banning of over the counter pain tablets that contain small amounts of codeine is going to hurt Australians and benefit the medical industry.
If you ever get a bad back or sprained ankle and need quick and safe pain relief you will now have to wait and then pay a lot of money to see a doctor, rather than getting quick and safe pain relief from a tablet containing codeine, like Panadeine Extra.
This codeine ban was not designed to stop drug addicts getting codeine, as doctors now give patients Oxycodone and Fentanyl, which are 50 times stronger than heroin and large numbers of Australians die each year from these prescribed ‘super heroin’ drugs.
The alternatives to codeine have bad and dangerous side effects: Paracetamol (acetaminophen) is the most common cause of acute liver failure in United Kingdom and codeine alternatives called NSAID’s are the second biggest cause of ulcers in the USA, now a lot more Australians will get ulcers from NSDAIDs and liver damage from Paracetamol (acetaminophen).
Don’t think this codeine ban is to protect public health, it is only to boost the income of the medical industry.
Peter Olson, Goonengerry
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