A driver’s licence is required and many questions are asked of our patients. The licence is then recorded on a national database and it is up to the pharmacist (depending on previous purchase history) whether the sale of codeine can go through. 

We also offer alternative medication or therapies and always say go to the doctor if pain persists. 

If we are to talk about other medications that need to be more regulated and controlled it would be asthma puffers that can be bought over the counter. 

The amount of people that buy asthma inhalers without an asthma plan from their doctor is on the rise and most often than not these medications are also being abused and used incorrectly. 

Common sense should prevail over the sale of codeine because not everyone is able to access a doctor on the day when a migraine may strike or their back goes out.

The burgeoning knee-jerk reactions to Albury Council’s plan to reconstruct Griffith Street and replace its ageing, diseased and potentially dangerous trees brings to mind a similar occurrence three decades ago in central Albury. 

A group of vocal protesters loudly criticised council over the planned removal of trees in Swift Street near Myer Albury. 

Those aged trees were duly felled and replaced with an avenue of advanced trees that within a few short years restored Swift Street to its arboreal glory. 

Albury Council is not proposing the Griffith Street changes just for the sake of it. 

The street’s venerable but unsafe trees surely must be dealt with to safeguard property owners and their dwellings, pedestrians and parked vehicles and importantly to enable the street’s overdue reconstruction. 

Flanked by a new line of safe, advanced, long-lasting trees, before long Griffith Street’s mantle as one of Albury’s most attractive avenues would be restored. 

Albury Council’s commitment to beautifying Albury’s thoroughfares with street trees has a proud 143-year history, from the planting of the first in 1875 by town clerk Samuel Mudge, a two-year-old elm tree outside his Olive Steet residence, to the council tree planting and maintenance program that has continued since, transforming this city into one of Australia’s most attractive. 

That commitment is not likely to change. 

So the politicians now acknowledge there is a gang problem in Melbourne and they will get tough on it. Could anyone believe that? We often see politicians talking tough, increasing maximum penalties and the like and nothing happens because the judiciary continues to give minimum penalties which the governments do nothing about.

I was reading about the penalties in the United States and Nevada state where they limit their judiciary.

They give a judge three choices for a murder sentence: the death penalty, life without parol, and life with parole after 20 years.

While their justice system leaves a lot to be desired their judges do have to give adequate sentences, not like Australia where the Judges thumb their noses at what the public expect.