{"id":347439,"date":"2026-05-28T21:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T20:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsisc.com\/videos\/the-uks-hidden-painkiller-addiction\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T21:00:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T20:00:39","slug":"the-uks-hidden-painkiller-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsisc.com\/videos\/the-uks-hidden-painkiller-addiction\/","title":{"rendered":"The UK&#8217;s hidden painkiller addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.ytimg.com\/vi\/vwiTMpk2Zgc\/hqdefault.jpg\" alt=\"The UK's hidden painkiller addiction\"><br \/> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vwiTMpk2Zgc\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p>Around 10 million people in the UK may have put themselves at risk of developing a dependency or addiction to codeine-based painkillers, a survey carried out for ITV Tonight has uncovered.<\/p>\n<p>There are widespread concerns amongst medical professionals about a hidden \u2018over the counter\u2019 dependency crisis in the UK &#8211; medicines that can form habits but are available to purchase without a prescription, including painkillers, sleeping aids and nasal sprays.<\/p>\n<p>Painkillers containing a combination of codeine and either ibuprofen or paracetamol are available to buy at pharmacies without a prescription, unlike more than 25 other countries including Australia, where the rules changed in 2018 to reduce the risk of abuse and addiction.<\/p>\n<p>The current guidance on codeine-based painkillers, which includes well-known brands like Nurofen Plus and Solpadeine, is that they should be used for a maximum of three days continuously.<\/p>\n<p>According to an ITV Tonight survey carried out by Savanta of more than 2,000 people across the UK, almost one in five people who have taken codeine-based painkillers did so for more than ten days in a row, while one in six took them for up to nine days.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Subscribe to ITV News on YouTube: http:\/\/bit.ly\/2lOHmNj<br \/>\n\u2022 Get breaking news and more stories at http:\/\/www.itv.com\/news<\/p>\n<p>Follow ITV News on TikTok https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@itvnews?lang=en<br \/>\nFollow ITV News on Instagram: https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/itvnews\/<br \/>\nFollow ITV News on Facebook: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/itvnews\/<br \/>\nFollow ITV News on X: https:\/\/twitter.com\/itvnews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around 10 million people in the UK may have put themselves at risk of developing a dependency or addiction to codeine-based painkillers, a survey carried out for ITV Tonight has uncovered. There are widespread concerns amongst medical professionals about a hidden \u2018over the counter\u2019 dependency crisis in the UK &#8211; medicines that can form habits [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":347440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[128812],"tags":[129115,129219,128896],"actors":[],"class_list":["post-347439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-itv-news","tag-around","tag-million","tag-people"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The UK&#039;s hidden painkiller addiction | News ISC Videos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Watch The UK&#039;s hidden painkiller addiction for free, here on News ISC. 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