Achieving Balance in National Opioids Control Policy

The 2000 World Health Organization guidelines, “Achieving Balance in National Opioids Control Policy,” are now available from the University of Wisconsin Pain & Policy Studies Group, a grantee of OSI's International Palliative Care Initiatives. WHO designed the guidelines for governments and healthcare professionals to assess national opioids control policies and their administration to determine if they contain the provisions, administrative procedures, and cooperation necessary to ensure availability of opioid analgesics for pain relief and palliative care. The guidelines are an essential tool in the Pain & Policy Studies Group's ongoing work in Eastern Europe to improve patient access to pain medications.

Available in 11 languages (Bulgarian, German, Lithuanian, Polish, Ukrainian, English, French, Italian, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish), the guidelines can be found at http://www.medsch.wisc.edu/painpolicy/publicat/00whoabi/00whoabi.htm.