Members within the pharmaceutical community are concerned people who use painkillers responsibly are being hit by new laws.

Starting February 1, medicines containing codeine will become prescription-only.

George Tambassis, President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, tells Chris Kenny a real-time monitoring system would be more effective.

“We opposed [the new laws] to start with.

“We know doctors are going to do their best when these medicines go prescription-only, but we know they haven’t got a real-time monitoring system in place.”

Mr Tambassis says these new laws will undoubtedly affect patients who use painkillers sensibly.

“We’ve said to the state government, ‘why don’t you allow access to these medicines to the people we identify to be using them properly?'”

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