Published on: February 27, 2014

This is good news as well as bad news. The good news is that the morphine consumption in the country is on the rise. The bad news is that the progress is too slow. The following indicates the quantity of morphine sent out from the Government Opium and Alkaloid Factory to manufacturers in India, every year. We use this as an index because till about two years back, India did not have a reliable system for estimating the morphine consumption in the country, and we know it for a fact that the consumption data sent to INCB in the previous years were not accurate.

Of course, the quantity reported here is inaccurate in itself, in several ways. For example, you will notice in the graph a couple of peaks. The peak in the year 2000 was simply because the Government of India had bought huge quantities and supplied it free to cancer centres around the country. Most of this was never used and was burnt. In 2004, 2005 and 2006, there were major gaps in production and supply in the Government Opium and Alkaloid Factory and that resulted in an unnatural hike in the subsequent year. Well, at least the data in the last few years seem to be representative of increasing morphine consumption in the country.

We wish the graph was steeper, though.