Paracetamol (Acetaminophen) is on the General Sales List (GSL) provided it is in packs containing no more than 32 x 500 mg tablets. GSL items can be sold anywhere. There is a restriction for GSL paracetamol that not more than one pack is sold at a time but how many corner shop owners know that? The supermarkets are usually better, with the point of sale scanning terminals enforcing the rule (I've seen this happen). Paracetamol starts being mildly hepatotoxic (in an adult) if you take more than 4 grammes (eight tablets) in a 24 hour period. Ten grammes in a single dose is typically treated as the threshold for needing active treatment with an antidote. Thirty-two tablets (16 grammes) will cause death in about 4% of untreated cases. Twenty-five grammes is highly likely to kill you - slowly and painfully. Obviously these figure go out of the window if another hepatotoxin (i.e. alcohol) is taken at the same time. Some LD50s for those of you who are interested: Oral, mouse: LD50 = 338 mg/kg; Oral, rat: LD50 = 1944 mg/kg. The introduction of the maximum 32 tablet pack was a legislative response to the number of deaths from paracetamol poisoning. As you can see from the above, it's still enough to kill some people. An alternative, that was not pursued, would have been to require all paracetamol sold to have been compounded with methionine (Co-methiamol). The methionine doesn't reduce the useful effects of paracetamol. Paracetamol damages the liver by depleting its supply of glutathione which methionine replaces. (Strictly speaking it's a paracetamol metabolite that does the damage by soaking up glutathione.) Who knows how many deaths insisting on only co-methiamol being sold would have prevented at little cost? 8/500 co-codamol tablets (8mg codeine and 500 mg paracetamol) are [P] products and can be sold to the general public from a pharmacy in packs of 32 or less. All other compound codeine preparations (more codeine or larger quantity) are [POM] and require a doctor's prescription.