Laws regarding sales of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen??

whitewing

LuciferTDark wrote: »

Sorry melancholy but there is no way that limiting people to buying 2 boxes has had any effect on the number of suicides by paracetamol.

Anyone determined enough to try killing themselves that way will just visit every shop that sells them & buy 2 boxes in each, I know for a fact I can get at least 20 boxes in under an hour in my area & have a dose lethal enough to kill an elephant (probably).

Having actually tried more than once in my teens to overdose on paracetamol , I would disagree with your remarks. While I agree that someone who is determined will find a way, any deterrant is better than none.

As far as I am aware, as few as 8 paracetamol can cause a painful and undignified death. So the law is a balance between trying to save impulse suicides and being a complete inconvenience to the majority of people.

This is just a personal viewpoint, not wanting to upset anyone or cause an argument.

chuckles1066

weegie.geek wrote: »

Bad way to try to top yourself anyway, all you'll do is !!!! your liver.

Yes, good post.

I used to go out with a nurse.......she told me she couldn't believe the number of dumb Brits who thought you could take 48 paracetamols with a bottle of vodka before you went to bed and that would be game over.

Nope........your body's a lot more resilient than that. But, as you say, once your liver starts to try and metabolise all those pills, then you'll begin a very nasty, painful, slow, lingering death as you slowly poison one of the most important organs you have.

MarkyMarkD

whitewing wrote: »

Having actually tried more than once in my teens to overdose on paracetamol , I would disagree with your remarks. While I agree that someone who is determined will find a way, any deterrant is better than none.

As far as I am aware, as few as 8 paracetamol can cause a painful and undignified death. So the law is a balance between trying to save impulse suicides and being a complete inconvenience to the majority of people.

This is just a personal viewpoint, not wanting to upset anyone or cause an argument.

So, if 8 are deadly why can you buy 24? The law is stupid because it isn't effective against preventing anyone with any serious intent from buying sufficient pills.

LuciferTDark

I wasn't deliberately trying to make light of a very important subject, I know only too well how determined someone can be when they want to kill themselves. My missus tried to kill herself last year with anti-depressants, I was really only trying to make the point that limiting their sale won't deter someone who is 100% set on ending their life by using them.

whitewing

Lucifer,

I don't have a problem with your post. I just think that limiting the sale will have an impact on someone who is being impulsive, eg a 24 hour garage near us, but my darkest hours were always during the night. Limiting the sale would have meant that other shops weren't open.

MarkyMark,

I don't see the point of your post. You can't expect the law to wholly guide people's way thro life.

MarkyMarkD

I don't know how you don't see the point of my post.

All the law restricting the purchase of paracetamol does is inconvenience the 99.99% of people who don't intend to do anything other than use it properly. It also increases the packaging and cost of paracetamol.

Before the law changed you could buy 100 paracetamol for less than £1 from any pharmacist. Now you have to buy stupid packs of 16 which (often, and I know not always) cost a lot more than 16p and involve lots more packaging.

I didn't suggest that I expect the law to guide people's way through life - in fact, I was making exactly the opposite point. The law makes no difference to the behaviour of those intent on suicide through overdose.

Someone very close to me has made 2 suicide attempts, both involving overdose. One was using sleeping tablets (prescribed, but actually not dangerous in overdose - but she didn't know that) and the other using paracetamol purchased (believe it or not) from a hospital pharmacy whilst she was a mental health inpatient. I'm honestly not randomly speaking from a position of no understanding here, as I am sure you think.

melancholly

i'm afraid i'm going to do a Ted and add in some links to show the evidence that sales of paracetamol is linked to suicide (and i would like to point out that even it helps prevent just a few then, in my opinion, it's worth it).

Article suggesting that limiting the quantity of paracetamol available as a single purchase in the UK may reduce suicide and liver failure related to paracetamol.

Another article on the same lines

BBC article after the changes were introduced in the UK

there are also a few other studies suggesting a lack of significant drop, and various papers giving a commentary on why.

i really just want to emphasize that this legislation wasn't brought in on a whim - it was based on quite a lot of evidence from a variety of researchers. lots of people lucky enough never to have had genuine suicidal thoughts (sadly i'm not in that group) may not understand the mind set of those who have a knee jerk reaction and want to harm themselves (it's not a place i ever want to go again). undoubtably this won't stop everyone, but seriously, for the sake of only buying 16 in one go for the general public, is it really too much trouble to possibly stop someone?

the only other thing i can add is that people i know actively researching self harm and suicide believe it helps - they have far more exposure to the problem than i could ever have (or ever want to have) and a better idea of what generalisations can be made about such a diverse group of people. i thought it was a really stupid idea until i spoke to them and now i'm convinced. sadly i don't have the detail to hand to give the same eloquent arguements, but i completely u turned on my opinion based on their experiences.

belfastgirl23

I agree with whitewing on this, yes it's an inconvenience but at the same time if it prevents a few suicides then it's worth it IMHO. It seems to me that wholly determined suicides are less likely to use pills and that the people who do use pills aren't always completely set on finishing the job. In which case you are at least giving them valuable breathing space by having to go to a few different places.

And yes I've been stopped before for buying a few packs of ibuprofen - they are so much cheaper in Boots that I try to stock up when I'm there...

MarkyMarkD

I understand that the research seems to indicate that the legislation has had a positive impact.

I find it very difficult to understand why, though.

Despite the inconvenience of buying limited numbers of paracetamol at a time, we have always got loads of them in our house. It seems fairly unbelievable that someone intent on taking an overdose is put off by the restrictions.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

I tried to buy two boxes of co-codamol at Asda pharmacy,one for me and the other for my daughter who does'nt live with me.The assistant treated me like I was a weirdo and said there was no way would she sell me more than one box even though I explained the circumstances.I had my husband with me and she refused to let him buy one of the boxes instead,as he was as she said obviously with me.