Melatonin is a natural hormone that helps induce sleep<\/a>, and is used to treat insomnia and jet lag, but has been classified as a prescription-only medicine in New Zealand.<\/p>\nNo specific date has been set for when the changes will take effect.<\/p>\n
Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced the decisions on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
“Kiwis shouldn’t be left counting sheep or desperate for options when other countries are already using these medicines. The government is committed to putting patients first,” he said.<\/p>\n
“In time, adults will be able to buy melatonin directly from a pharmacy with no prescription needed. This is a commonsense decision that will make melatonin more accessible in New Zealand than in many other countries and encourage suppliers bring more products to our shelves.”<\/p>\n
He said the change for psilocybin was a huge win for people with depression who had tried everything else.<\/p>\n
“If a doctor believes psilocybin can help, they should have the tools to try. The psychiatrist involved has previously prescribed psilocybin in clinical trials and will operate under strict reporting and record-keeping requirements.”<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Seymour. Photo: RNZ \/ REECE BAKER The government has signalled melatonin will become available over the counter,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[1816,9409,105,4326,12,196,10975,10973,10974,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-193301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-medication","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-podcasts","14":"tag-public-radio","15":"tag-radio-new-zealand","16":"tag-rnz","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114702118140982400","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}