Buying over-the-counter medicines containing codeine, pseudoephedrine, and dextromethorphan will be limited. The new recipe is to make it difficult to buy these psychoactive preparations, including by adolescents who increasingly used them not to heal, but to intoxicate themselves with them. It was like that with the popular cough syrup.
The Ministry of Health emphasizes that the doses specified in the regulations are sufficient for the therapy to be effective and safe. The ministry said the change would not cause any problems for patients who buy drugs to treat upper respiratory tract infections.
We will no longer be able to buy these preparations in any quantity, without a prescription, but only once. And the amount of psychoactive substances they contain will be strictly defined and will not exceed 720 mg of pseudoephedrine, 240 mg of codeine and 360 mg of dextromethorphan.
Codeine is a drug used to treat symptomatic treatment of a dry, exhausting cough without the production of mucus. Pseudoephedrine is used to treat inflammation of the upper respiratory tract (rhinitis, sinusitis) and bronchitis. Dextromethorphan, on the other hand, is used to temporarily inhibit cough that occurs in the case of a cold or inhaling irritants.
MZ follows the drug policies of Great Britain, France, the Czech Republic and Germany. Similar regulations have been introduced in these countries and this has proved to be very effective.
The restrictions were introduced in the Journal of Laws of December 28 by the ordinance of the Minister of Health on “the list of psychoactive substances and the maximum level of their content in a medicinal product, which is a restriction in the dispensing of medicinal products as part of one-off sale”.