Unseen Victims Project

Pain can affect anyone, but some groups are more likely to experience it or face greater barriers to care. Pain is a women’s rights issue, a racial equity issue, a disability rights issue, an older persons’ rights issue, and a human rights issue.

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Pain Relief is a Human Right

Freedom from Pain Is a Human Right

The concept of human rights generally brings to mind some basic fundamental freedoms and protections: Freedom from torture. Freedom of opinion and expression. Freedom from slavery. But what about a person at the end of her life who is left to die in excruciating pain. Is there a human right to be free from this suffering?

Lack Of OPIOIDS LEAVES THE WORLD IN PAIN

Lack of access to essential medicines such as pain medications for treatment violates the right to the highest attainable standard of health, which is one of the human rights conventions that all countries in the world have signed on to.

It also violates the right to be free from torture and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Myths about opioids

Myths about opioids that they are always dangerous and instantly addictive. The exaggeration of the effects of opioids combined with “zero tolerance” spills over into the use of the drugs in medical settings.

Widespread “opioidphobia” affects physicians and even patients who would benefit from taking narcotics. Pain is political.

What can we all do?

Policy makers, advocates, and medical professionals all have important, very specific roles in this ongoing struggle. The rest of us need to rethink our understanding of the problem.

Differentiate between the overdose crisis, which involves a much wider range of drugs, largely illegal rather than prescribed, and the problem of opioid prescription practices.