' WAR ON DRUGS' BLOCKS MEDICAL ACCESS TO MORPHINE

Patients Suffering From Terminal Illnesses in Some Countries Denied
Pain Killer, Ubc Graduate School of Journalism Study Finds

A study by University of B. C. journalism students says the global
war on illicit drugs is preventing patients suffering terminal
illnesses in some countries from having sufficient access to morphine
to control their pain.

The year-long study done by the UBC Graduate School of Journalism
involved teams travelling to India, Ukraine and Uganda to see how
those countries manage pain.

The results of The Pain Project can be found at
www.internationalreporting.org/pain.

The report was released in advance of a United Nations conference in
New York this week on the global challenges of treating cancer and
other diseases.

Prof. Peter Klein, UBC'S acting graduate school director, said that
unlike many global health problems, pain treatment is not about money
or lack of drugs, as morphine costs pennies per dose and is easy to
manufacture.

He said bureaucratic hurdles and the chilling effect of the war on
drugs were the main obstacles to morphine access in some countries.

" The story of global morphine shortages is one of those issues that
both the media and the medical community have overlooked," said Klein.

He said he became interested in pursuing the story after talking with
a member of Doctors Without Borders, who found a lack of morphine in
a number of countries he visited. " For instance, in India, which is
the largest supplier of medical morphine in the world, it's virtually
unavailable in most parts of the country except for one state [
Kerala]," said Klein.

Klein said some countries, such as India, had over-reacted to UN
regulations regarding access to opiates - an unintended result of the
war on drugs.

Uganda was chosen an example of a Third World success story on how
the issue could be overcome, while Ukraine was a case study in the
problems caused by too much bureaucracy in cancer care.

The website offers videos from each country showing how patients
there struggle with pain.

One shows a former Ukrainian KGB officer dying of prostate cancer who
sleeps with a gun under his pillow " in case the pain becomes
unbearable," while another shows an Indian doctor frustrated with
drug laws who mixes readily available analgesics to ease the pain of
his cancer patients.

A third shows a Ugandan nurse who led a movement to reform that
country's drug laws affecting morphine distribution and palliative care.