Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

Medsafe's medicines classification committee last month considered coronial recommendations about the sale of paracetamol made after the inquest into the death of a Dunedin student.Alannah Lee Spankie, 20, died from acute liver failure in June 2017, after the University of Otago science student took a large amount of paracetamol.Coroner David Robinson in September found that Spankie had not intended to take her own life, and recommended tighter sales restrictions be placed on drugs which can currently be bought without controls at supermarkets.The committee received 18 submissions on Robinson's recommendations before today's meeting, being held in Wellington.The National Poisons Centre, based at the University of Otago, said in advice provided to the committee that paracetamol was the most common single substance involved in cases of intentional self-poisoning, and the substance it received the most inquiries about.In the last five months of 2016 there were four cases involving people who took 30g or more of