The magazine said that Kerala is one of the first of India's states to relax narcotics regulations to permit use of morphine by palliative care providers. Kerala has also extended the definition of palliative care to include the long-term chronically ill and even the mentally incapacitated. Kerala's formal palliative care policy, the only state with such a policy, the community-based Neighborhood Network in Palliative Care (NNPC) Project that employs an army of volunteers and the Government funding for these local community-based care units, almost 260 in number, has earned it many an accolade.