Rebuttal Paper

There are millions of people all over the world who suffer from painful and often terminal diseases. In his article, “How the War on Drugs Punishes Those Who Suffer,” Jason Silverstein explains the reasons for a disparity in available pain medicine between high-income countries and middle to low income countries. The International Narcotics Control Board binds countries to pain medicine quotas by income (Silverstein). In poorer countries around the world, governments focus more on preventing injection drug abuse than they do promoting use of the drugs for pain relief. Silverstein believes that nurses should be able to give patients pain medication. Although there is a large disparity in available pain medication between rich and poor countries, the disparity is due to lack of education and frequent government intervention.
Middle income to low income countries receive significantly more amounts of pan medication than do the richer countries in the world. “Though nearly 50% of the world's cancer patients and 90% of the world's HIV/AIDS patients live in low-to-middle income countries, they only receive 6% of the world's morphine supply. North America and Europe, on the other hand, receive close to 89% of the world's morphine (Silverstein).” It is true that there is more morphine in wealthier countries but these countries also have a higher rate of drug abuse. Allotting the lower income countries more pain medication would then create more drug abusers. This would cause more harm than good because lower income countries would experience more drug problems. These countries are also not nearly as educated about drugs and communicable diseases and would be more likely to increase rates of drug related issues and HIV/AIDS.
Silverstein believes that nurses should be able to giver prescriptions of hydrocodone to patients in need. “In January, an FDA committee voted to move hydrocodone combination medicine into the restrictive schedule 2 category of controlled