?Every day I pray I could provide morphine to some of my patients so they could at least die in dignity? —a Burmese doctor... Burma could free its seized opium for medicinal use... "It is one of the most baffling ironies in this age of globalization that while developing countries like Burma are being urged to destroy their opium stocks and poppy fields, others in the developed world are being encouraged to produce the drug for use in pharmaceuticals...Yet, doctors in one of the major producing countries—Burma—complain of a critical shortage of drugs for pain relief. In hospitals across the country, terminal cancer and AIDS patients, and also people recovering from surgery, are suffering unnecessary pain. There are even doctors who advise the relatives of AIDS patients who can no longer bear to see family members or friends suffer in their final weeks to buy illegal heroin to alleviate their pain..."