At the moment in most of Canada it already is legal, I can go to any pharmacy and buy 200 ASA/Acetaminophen for around 10-16 Canadian bucks...It's behind the counter of course, but in Ontario just bouncing between pharmacies makes it easy to get as many as I want. Soak and dissolve in hot water, cool to cold in the fridge and filter with a Kleenex or paper towel, voila 1600mg codeine though, consequently that also adds 15mg per pill of caffeine as well, so if you take 100 mg of codeine you're looking at a around 187.5 mg of caffeine on top of everything. If you assume a coffee sits ~95mg per percolated cup, you literally are investing nearly 2 cups in one shot all at once.
Not something that would kill a healthy person, but it's something to keep in mind...Doing it with any regularity is going to be pretty rough on your heart, particularly as dose increases...at my "heavier" points I've used 400 mg of codeine in a pop, tha'ts 750 mg of caffeine if my math is right, about 8 cups of coffee all at once in about 50 or 60 ml of fluid...again, unless you have a heart or circulatory issue it's not something that's going to kill you, but still, that's a LOT of caffeine to take all at once. It's just something to take into account. There are ways to remove it of course, but frankly I didn't really have the time or resources to bother. I will say, during those times I used far too heavily and went into withdrawal, having to cold turkey both an opiate AND caffeine at the same time is a chore and a half...wound up stocking up on coffee and just chucking huge jugs of coffee so I could deal with the unpleasantness of codeine withdrawal on it's own.
Anyway, back to the question, it's easy as getting a pack of cigarettes is in Ontario, some pharmacists if they see you buying bottles every day will say something, mainly chain stores like Shopper's Drug Mart and the like, but I know I've bought 4 or 5 bottles of 200 at places like Walmart and they don't give a.rats ass, will literally greet me after a bit with "so, 200 then?".
I can't speak for elsewhere, Ontario is great, I have a friend who moved nearby Edmonton and they're apparently much more anal, they require she show her heath card, then enter it into a database that I think is centralized to most larger pharmacy chains. On top of that they only seem willing to give 50 or sometimes 100 bottles at most, they don't even apparently carry the 200 sizes. The database seems to keep all but the mom and pop smaller pharmacies in the loop, if she buys 50 at one store, goes to another and buys another 50 they will notice she just got 50 elsewhere and wonder why she needs another 50. I can't speak to other provinces...But yeah, aside from how watched they are, ASA and acetaminophen 1's, with 8 mg codeine and 15 mg caffeine are over the counter, no need for script (hence the caffeine, it's a legal thing forcing OTC narcotics like this to have one or more extra ingredient). To get anything of higher stregth, T2, T3 for example you need a script, easy enough to get really if you "have some pain" and the NSAID, ibuprofen approach isn't helping. T4's aren't something you'll find though, my mom used to have some occasionally when she was a nurse that got left in her scrubs by accident...At that point you're likely looking more at an injection than pills and are crossing the point doctors will just be deciding to use dilaudid or percocets instead. They exist, but unless you're in a hospital as an employee your not liable to see them...2 and 3 are all over though, and the 1s anyone can get...Sorry for the rambling diatribe, just trying to give a complete picture
