Indian parliament votes to increase access to morphine

India’s parliament has approved changes to the country’s drug laws to make it easier for doctors to access morphine and other narcotic drugs for their patients.

Amendments to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act have abolished rules that meant hospitals and pharmacies had to obtain four or five licences from different government agencies every time they wanted to purchase narcotic analgesics.

Those rules, which were introduced in 1985, resulted in a 97% fall in the use …