The Provincial Times – Don’t take us seriously
The Provincial Times series provides an exclusive insight into news from the future. Below is a unique excerpt of a page from 2050 (the text is below).
Jill and Giles Foundation to distribute Thanafix in India
JOHN SMITH — NEW DELHI
A press release from the Jill and Giles Foundation announced yesterday the distribution of 100 000 doses of Thanafix® in India. The drug developed by the US pharmaceutical company Gilgamesh Science is meant to alleviate the suffering of patients afflicted by incurable diseases such as destitution or hopelessness. The distribution is part of a five-year programme of Thanafix distribution in the Global South.
The statement read: “The most vulnerable on the planet need our help. As economic inequalities rise and desperation thrives, our silence became complicit in the miserable lives of millions. We could no longer watch them live without doing anything about it. So, we decide to launch the Thana4Life programme”.
The first phase of the Thana4Life programme starts today in the poorest state of India, Manipur, in the eastern part of the country. The world’s largest philanthropic organisation aims to deliver 3 million doses of Thanafix in ten countries, including South Africa, Cambodia, and Benin, among others.
Thanafix is the “most efficient painkiller of history” as Gilgamesh Science reports on its website. Taken with water it promises death within two to three hours. Last month, Gilgamesh Science signed a record deal with the Jill and Giles Foundation for the Thana4Life programme, although no party agreed to release the exact amount of the transaction.
‘This is history in the making. This is not just an end to despair, it’s a cure for global inequalities’
The launch was celebrated by the “thanactivists” — the activists that fight for the free national distribution of the drug. Riri Gaga, the president of the largest organisation of thanactivists, Thanafixed Me said that “this moment had been long awaited”. “We have more destitution here than anywhere else in the world, yet no Thanafix in sight”.
Not all seemed to rejoice, however. The NGO We Care immediately released a statement decrying the decision made by the US-based foundation. We Care claims that the foundation is “responsible for the biggest eugenic episode in history”. “Destitution is not a disease, despair not a fatality. Hope dies last, but the miserable are killed first” concluded the statement.
This radical position is judged extreme and unrepresentative by most thanactivists. A poll commissioned by the Jill and Giles Foundation last year found that 63% of the Indian population wanted to use the pill but cannot afford to. Riri Gaga called We Care’s claims “ludicrous”. Pressed to elaborate, he cut it short: “Their position is so marginal, it is not even worth mentioning”. He added: “This is history in the making. This is not just an end to despair, it’s a cure for global inequalities”.
In the UK, the NHS now administers around 2000 doses of Thanafix per month and hopes to double that amount by next year.
Borazan Sesli 
Now that physician assisted dying is available in Canada, and social assistance to people with physical challenges is being cut, people are applying just because they do not have the resources to properly care for themselves. Not a joke.
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