Director General/Executive Director
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Ensuring that pain relief medicine reaches all those who need it is a priority topic for the international community.
This is underscored by the many Member States, international organizations and civil society partners that have shown their support as co-sponsors of this important event.
I would particularly like to thank Belgium for their leadership in organizing our meeting today.
The numbers speak for themselves. One in every ten people around the world suffers chronic pain.
Some five million people, in more than one hundred and fifty countries, suffer from moderate to severe pain caused by cancers.
Some 1.4 million people with end-stage HIV do not receive treatment.
Pain management has a strong human rights dimension, and palliative care is an essential function of primary health care.
Narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances are necessary to alleviate pain in medical settings.
Opioid analgesics like morphine are a mainstay of pain treatment for cancer, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, diabetes, childbirth, surgery, injuries and other conditions.
The international drug control conventions, in recognizing that the medical use of narcotic drugs is indispensable for the relief of pain and suffering, call on parties to ensure the availability of narcotic drugs for such purposes.
The 2016 UNGASS Outcome Document specifically calls Member States to action to increase access to controlled medicines while preventing diversion, misuse and abuse.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development also highlights this priority under SDG 3.8.
And yet we face the global situation that more than eighty per cent of the people in need of controlled drugs for medical purposes, particularly for palliative care, lack such access.
Major disparities persist. INCB estimates that ninety-two per cent of morphine is consumed in countries which concentrate a mere seventeen per cent of the world population, namely the US, Canada, countries in Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, many of those living in low- and middle-income countries are left with limited or no access to proper pain relief.
In response, UNODC works to increase the number of patients receiving appropriate treatment, including pain relief and palliative care, for conditions requiring the use of controlled substances.
Working with WHO, the Union for International Cancer Control and INCB, among others, UNODC develops recommendations and tools to help policymakers and health-care personnel improve accessibility to and availability of controlled drugs, while preventing diversion and abuse.
This includes supporting Member States in addressing major impediments to the use of controlled medicines, from sourcing problems to cultural attitudes towards the treatment of pain and mental health disorders, to legislation- or policy-based barriers.
Beginning in 2013, the UNODC-WHO-UICC Joint Global Programme has worked with Member States to engage key national stakeholders in activities to increase access to essential controlled medicines for patients in need.
The Programme has been active in countries such as Ghana, DRC, Nigeria, Panama and Timor-Leste, with the overall objective of providing a coordinating platform for a global response.
With the support of Belgium, Australia and the US, our work has focused on analysing legislation and policy; building capacity of the healthcare workforce; and addressing issues related to the supply chain.
Distinguished participants,
We have a responsibility to help counter the unnecessary suffering of people who do not have access to pain relief medicines.
We need a balance between ensuring the availability of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances under international control for medical and scientific purposes, and preventing their diversion and abuse.
Both sides of this balance are concerned with the protection and promotion of health and public safety. In this, the international drug control conventions are clear.
In working together to achieve this balance, we will advance the right to health, and contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goal three: to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all.
Thank you.