Five per cent of the world is consuming 95 per cent of the globe’s morphine supplies, leaving roughly 5 billion people vulnerable to chronic pain if and when it comes.

Take a moment and check out A World of Pain on CBS News.

It’s the latest partnership in the Pain Project, our ongoing project on an under-reported global health issue.

More on the International Reporting Program is available here.

Canadians who experience extreme pain can usually halt their agony with pain killers. That’s a reality that most of us take for granted, but in most parts of the world, it’s not an option.

Bureaucracy and the war on drugs are preventing those who need help the most from accessing highly effective narcotic pain killers, such as morphine. We traveled to India, Ukraine and Uganda to find out why.

Life in Pain is latest chapter of our work, broadcast on Global television, and available here.

The documentary report was shot and produced by a team of students, and teachers from the University of British Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism International Reporting Program (IRP). Peter W. Klein, an award-winning producer who is the director of the UBC School of Journalism and the IRP, led the project.

More than half the countries in the world have little to no access to pain medications, the result of bureaucratic hurdles and the chilling effect of the global war on drugs.

We traveled to India, Ukraine and Uganda to put a human face on just some of the millions of patients around the globe forced to suffer long-term illnesses in excruciating pain.

Here’s the result of our year-long investigation.

For those who didn’t come across this in July when the documentary first premiered on Al Jazeera’s People & Power, our film Freedom from Pain is still available on AJE’s website.

The doc was reported and filmed by students, myself included, from the University of British Columbia’s School of Journalism.

We traveled to India, Uganda and the Ukraine to figure out why the so many people–as many as 80 per cent of the world’s population–goes without pain killers when they need them the most.

If you’re moved by what you see, please spread it around.

Our documentary Freedom From Pain is now available online at Al Jazeera’s People & Power.

Please take the time to check it out. If you like it, spread it around.

Also visit InternationalReporting.org to learn about other projects from the international reporting program at the University of British Columbia.

Please take the time to view our new documentary called Freedom From Pain. It airs on the Al Jazeera English program People & Power on Wednesday July 20 at 3:30 p.m. pt.

Nine journalism students, myself included, traveled to India, Ukraine, and Uganda to investigate how countries around the world treat patients suffering from extreme medical pain.

What we found was alarming: Millions of people in the world are suffering from advanced cancers, horrific wounds, and terminal illnesses with virtually no access to painkillers. But unlike so many global health problems, we found that the lack of pain treatment isn’t about money or shortage of drugs. Morphine — the gold standard in pain treatment — is not only cheap, but is also readily available. We discovered that inflexible, outdated bureaucracies and an irrational fear of narcotics are responsible for the suffering of so many people around the world. Some experts have even compared the suffering of these millions of patients to torture.

However, there is hope. We met with pioneers and doctors in the medical and human rights communities that tirelessly fight to get morphine to patients who need it most and end the needless suffering.

For more information please email me at evan@evanduggan.com.

A press release will be available on Monday, July 18.

If you share some of my tastes, you may be a shrimp enthusiast.

If so, you should check out this documentary featured by the Globe and Mail on the darker aspects of the Thai shrimp farming industry.

It was reported and produced by a group of my colleagues at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism in Vancouver.

Heading to India in December to report for a documentary on global health.

As part of the UBC School of Journalism’s international reporting course, three colleagues and I will be tramping around India reporting on the opium industry and palliative health care.

At the same time we’ll have two other teams abroad. One in Uganda, and another in Ukraine.

An adventure to be sure.

I’ve not been to India before, so if you have any valuable travel tips please share.

High fives to a group of University of British Columbia  J-schoolers who have been nominated for two Emmy awards for their documentary Ghana: A digital dumping ground that aired on PBS’s Frontline last year.

The ten students and their lead instructor—Peter Klein—are in contention for Outstanding Investigative Journalism and Outstanding Research categories.

Well done.