Yesterday I read an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (every Monday, I get to read article selected from The New York Times for the above-mentioned newspaper) on the lack of painkillers in much of the developing world. The article entitled 'Lack of Painkillers and Fear of Addiction Leave the Poor to Suffer' goes on to illustrate how people in the developing world have no access to the use of painkillers because often these people who are suffering simply cannot get morphine. In that regards, many are left to die in unimaginable pain and agony.

In Sierra Leone for instance, it is not so much the poverty or the lack of supply. It's the fear of addiction. It seems doctors are afraid that by providing patients with painkillers like morphine, there is the potentiality for addiction. This is in turn creates the possibility for a cycle of crime, addiction and so on. Indeed there is a grey line between the need for morphine for pain relief for those suffering and the potentiality for addiction. Still, it is almost inhumane to deny painkillers to someone who is clearly suffering every single day.

The article also interestingly pointed out how much of the world medical narcotics are consumed mainly by those in developed world like the U.S, Britain, Australia and Germany. It seems they consume about 80 per cent of the world's medical narcotics while those in the developing world consumed slightly about 6 per cent.

Thing is, morphine is neither expensive not short in supply. But it is routinely denied to most poor countries. There is also the tendency to believe most of the developing world are only ravaged by diseases such as AIDS, malaria and so on but what we tend to forget is that equally as many are suffering from diseases cancer and the equivalent. And in places like Sierra Leone with only about 100 qualified doctors, most diagnoses are discovered in the late stages. In cases like that, death is almost certain.