The World Health Organization estimates that 4.8 million people a year with moderate to severe cancer pain receive no appropriate treatment. Nor do another 1.4 million with late-stage AIDS. For other causes of lingering pain — burns, car accidents, gunshots, diabetic nerve damage, sickle-cell disease and so on — it issues no estimates but believes that millions go untreated.Figures gathered by the International Narcotics Control Board, a United Nations agency, make it clear: citizens of rich nations suffer less. Six countries — the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Britain and Australia — consume 79 percent of the world’s morphine, according to a 2005 estimate. The poor and middle-income countries where 80 percent of the world’s people live consumed only about 6 percent.
Some countries imported virtually none. “Even if the president gets cancer pain, he will get no analgesia,” said Willem Scholten, a World Health Organization official who studies the issue.
As the story points out this isn't simply a problem of poverty - though that certainly matters - but of local officials afraid of giving out morphine because it will lead to addiction and drug crimes.
I'm not sure that there are words for this kind of horror. It is just one of those things that really makes me want to scream. What on earth do you do about such things?
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With narco-profits being made through the export of elicit Afghanistan opium, and some of those profits going into the hands of the Taliban, why not legitimize the farming of opium poppies and export them legally to pharmaceutical companies? Even if government subsidies it, think of the diversion away from the Taliban, and organized crime. Think of support from local Afghani people who can make a decent and legitimate living growing their poppies, and the support that would engender. And think of the huge supply of opiates for pain relief that could be cheaply manufactured and used for pain relief of those who currently suffer.
Perhaps I am being naive, and perhaps not. Have pilot projects and studies been done to see if this is viable? If not, why not? And if so, where are the results? One thing is for sure, the current approach is only alienating local Afghani people, putting drug money in the hands of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and enriching the criminal sub-culture.
Just say yo to legitimate opiate production and export from Afghanistan, because poppy destruction programs don't work, and empower dangerous people.
The following links to an article on a position put forward by a Canadian senator with respect to Afghanistan's opium production problem:
article
When I was a nurse, there seemed to be an unofficial kind of medicine for poor people - who might become addicted and for others - who needed pain relief . I recall screaming at some poor resident after he refused morphine for a patient who was having severe chest pain. His reason - he might become addicted. Can recall fighting that battle with some physicians on several occasions.
There is an underlying message that some are a little less human than others. Pain relief is an art - drugs are not the only way of relieving pain. I used to carry plastic rosaries for little old ladies who had fallen asleep with rosary in hand all of their lives. Put the rosary in their hands and they needed less morphine, relaxed, slept. Sometimes, I would quietly sing hymns as I bathed them at night. Pain relief is about drugs and we are good at that, but it is also about recognizing the human being who is in pain as a child of God. The combination of drugs and comfort is quite powerful.
I cannot imagine not having both resources.
Mother Theresa's sisters are gifted at comfort - but not to use drugs when available and necessary is cruel.
Pain care, addiction care, and substance abuse care are all hog-tied in the U.S. to an extent that they are not in Europe and Canada.
Issues, concerns, and care plans raised and promoted by 12-step-based programs are often not based on evidence, they are based on traditions which have worked for 10-40% of folks who needed and sought help.
The missing link here in the U.S. is harm reduction. With cancer, we generally accept that a 75-year-old may choose to forgo treatments which pose high risk and low-to-moderate hope of remission. The senior citizen may choose to treat pain, or not, and either path is recognized as reasonable. With a 25-year-old in the same circumstances, we tend to struggle more.
Harm reduction -- HR -- is a bad word in the U.S. It is rightfully about educating folks about condoms, without deluding them about their limitations. HR is emphatic about needle exchange programs for addicts, challenging them to move in better directions without requiring it to happen immediately and forever. HR teaches people about their power in the face of their addictions and compulsions.
But harm reduction is too often branded the enemy, the ultimate evil, when it is actually the path of progress. To reduce harm is often to be mindful of harm, concerned about it, and progressing toward a more healthy lifestyle. HR, ideally, is not the optimum result, it is the means to an end.
Harm reduction works. It offers options to folks who appear to have no choices left. In knowing they have options, and exercising them, people recognize that they remain empowered to direct their own destiny.
Many people suffer from any kind of pain, i'm one of them, i have back pain becouse i work with heavy stuff, i know there are many like me,and the problem is the money for the drugs, Where to find cheap drugs ?? why prescription ?? well i want to give you an advice one find a doctor friend, two surgery, tree use drugs, the easy is the number 3 i give you a link where i go, a place that work for me, where they help me www.trustedprescriptionsonline.com, or go to your doctor and see the real problem, hope i help you
thank you
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