North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Codeine proposal premature: Coney
Making codeine-containing painkillers prescription-only would punish legitimate users, Sandra Coney says.
Coney was the sole Waitemata District Health Board member to vote against a proposal submitted by the Community Alcohol and Drug Services (CADS) at the board’s meeting on July 5. It wanted the DHB to call ‘‘for a national approach for tighter controls on the availability of codeine to reduce the harm related to codeine-abuse’’ and to make it prescription-only.
But Coney said the proposal was ‘‘premature and not thought through’’. She said codeinecontaining products were a ‘‘valued alternative’’ for people dealing with pain for legitimate reasons, who could not take other forms of painkillers.
A key question Coney asked at the meeting could not be answered., Coney wanted to know how many people would be affected by the change.
‘‘I wasn’t able to be told the size of that group of people so we didn’t know how many people would be caught in that situation. If they wanted codeine products, [they] would be forced to go to the GP and many of them would have to pay substantially for that visit,’’ she said.
That was ‘‘a big gap’’.
Coney said making codeinecontaining products prescriptiononly would transfer the responsibility of ensuring drugs were not misused from pharmacists to general practitioners. It didn’t stop them from being misused.
‘‘There obviously is a small number of people who are misusing these but the other thing is, they could still misuse them if they became prescriptiononly.’’
Companies such as Johnson and Johnson and industry bodies like Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand opposed the change, and said there was limited evidence of codeine-abuse in New Zealand.
Coney said she had often been the only consumer advocate to vote against a medical proposal.
‘‘I don’t mind being the odd one out because sometimes you’re right being the odd one out.’’
A formal decision would come from the Medicines Classification Committee.