Twice as many legally hooked

Sarah Moyle takes codeine for her back. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Prescriptions for codeine-based drugs have doubled in the past five years, raising concern about the number of Kiwis hooked on painkillers.

The Alcohol and Drug Association of New Zealand has seen a sharp rise in the number of prescription medication addicts.

Counsellors also report an increase in addictions to over-the-counter products such as Nurofen Plus and Panadeine.

But doctors say codeine-based products cause fewer serious side effects than other medication and are heavily subsidised, reducing costs for consumers.

Codeine was originally derived from opium but is now made synthetically from morphine.

The number of prescriptions for products containing opioid-based codeine has risen from 147,000 in 2005 to almost 310,000 last year.

It's recommended by doctors for its effective pain relief, but users can become addicted to the sense of euphoria and feeling of sedation generated by the morphine.

Alcohol and Drug Association chief executive Paul Rout said the problem was hidden.

"I think we're just waking up that there are people out there who often don't set out to develop an addiction."

Association clinical team leader Mel Johns said calls to its 0800 helpline had surged in the past year. The majority of addicts were females in their 30s, but the problem "crosses all ages, gender and culture".

Christchurch-based, Johns has treated addicts so hooked on codeine they have driven 241km to Greymouth to buy the drug. Some people have ended up with a 48-a-day Nurofen Plus addiction.

Pain experts will discuss addiction issues at a pain summit in Canberra next week.

But Dr Lorna Fox, of the New Zealand Pain Society, said GPs were stuck "between the devil and the deep blue sea".

Doctors prescribe codeine because it carries less chance of causing stroke, stomach bleeding or renal failure compared to steroid-based drugs.

And codeine-based medicine has become much cheaper since government drug agency Pharmac started subsidising it, reducing the cost of a prescription from $15 to $3.

Dr Lee Nixon, an addiction specialist with Nelson Marlborough Alcohol and Other Drug Services, said the increase in codeine use was a response to society's demands to remove drug restrictions.

"Our grandparents expected to have to put up with a few discomforts in life - that's no longer acceptable."

Pharmac medical director Dr Peter Moodie said the organisation was taking the increase in codeine prescriptions seriously.

Daily dose does trick

When mother-of-two Sarah Moyle put her back out she had no idea she was on the brink of an addiction to painkillers.

Moyle first injured her back trying to move a rabbit hutch in 1996. She used painkillers to cope but re-injured it four years ago.

She started using codeine but soon needed more of the drug to cope.

"I just take it every day. As your body gets used to the drug it becomes dependent on it and then the initial dose doesn't do the same as what it did initially.

Moyle is up to four 30mg tablets four times a day - 480mg in total - on the advice of her doctor.

Moyle describes her back pain as a "horrible, aching, throbbing feeling" when it breaks through but is not keen on surgery after hearing of failed operations.

Painkiller problem

* 528,100: Approximate number of people in New Zealand with chronic pain.

* 25: The percentage of Kiwis suffering chronic back pain.

* 20: The percentage of chronic pain caused by surgery.

anna.rushworth@hos.co.nz