The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has scheduled another National Prescription Take Back Day to make this easy for you. Show up at a designated location between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm, Saturday, October 29, 2011, and simply pass your medications to the appropriate representative.
This applies to those antibiotics you stopped taking years ago, though you kept the bottle just in case you might need them again. Or perhaps you have just relocated and found old medicine containers holding a few last pills amongst the boxes long stored. The inherent dangers of keeping these items as well as of disposing their contents in other ways, can partially be avoided by participating in Take Back Day.
Check all your prescription bottles and containers for the dates issued. Check the name of the person to whom the prescription was made. Keeping some drugs in the home, whether they were originally prescribed for you or for someone else, can pose certain extreme dangers, especially if children are in the household.
Program History and Purpose
According to the 2009 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, more than seven million Americans currently abuse prescription drugs. The Partnership for a Drug Free America states that every day, approximately 2,500 teenagers use prescription drugs to get high for the first time. The National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) will address adolescent drug usage during the second annual National Drug Facts Week, October 31st through November 6th, toward removing confusion and building trust with teen participants.
Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including the home medicine cabinet. The DEA, in conjunction with nearly 4,000 state and local law enforcement agencies throughout the United States, conducted previous National Prescription Drug Take Back Days on September 25, 2010 and April 25, 2011. The result was a collection of more than 309 tons of pills.
Four days after last fall’s Take-Back Day, Congress passed legislation amending the Controlled Substances Act to allow the DEA to develop a process for people to safely dispose of their prescription drugs. DEA immediately began developing this process after President Obama signed the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010 on October 12. Until that process is complete, however, DEA will continue to hold Take Back Days every six months.
Ecological Impact
Two sides of thought exist regarding the habit of flushing old pills down a toilet. Some, say that only trace amounts of pharmaceutical chemicals make it through water processing plants and filtration systems. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for example, has a list they say should be flushed down the toilet, rather than risk exposure to children, pets or those for whom the drug is not intended. Others don’t feel the risks are worth taking, especially because cumulatively, large quantities can get into the water supply, thereby affecting the health of those who drink it.
USGS scientist sampling sediments from the South Platte River, Colorado, for Emerging Contaminants Project. Source: USGS
An ongoing investigation by Associated Press, including writers Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza an Justin Pritchard, described “U.S. hospitals and long-term care facilities annually flush millions of pounds of unused pharmaceuticals down the drain, pumping contaminants into America’s drinking water.”
Columbia Journal of Environmental Law published a paper by Guillermo Cuevas stating, “United States Geological Survey researchers detected pharmaceutical contaminants in eighty percent of 139 streams sampled. The contaminants found in the sampled aquatic environment included: antibiotics, hypertensive medication, antidepressants, analgesics, reproductive hormones, and other prescription drugs. These chemical agents have also impacted municipal drinking water supplies.”
This type of information can be found elsewhere in other studies and documentation. Various organizations, including the FDA and EPA have yet to determine and employ management principles to wholly and safely prevent pharmaceutical toxins from damaging our water supply
One FDA suggestion is to take pills and place them into coffee grounds or cat litter, then throw them into the trash in sealed plastic bags. This, however, poses the problem of pills (and more plastic) in landfills and also the eventual potential dumping into oceans in some cases. Leakage or dissemination of these pills into the land or aquifers is yet another consideration. One of the best options may be incineration, however not all agencies feel this is cost effective, nor are enough regulations actively monitored to ensure proper disposal, including the environmental impact of such a method.
You Can Only Do Your Part
Source: EPA
While major pharmacy companies, hospitals, healthcare agencies, the FDA, EPA and White House agencies, such as the Office of National Drug Control Policy attempt to hammer out solutions regarding the myriad hazards of dangerous pharmaceuticals getting to the general public by undesirable means, you can do your part by not taking anything that wasn’t prescribed directly for you; by not flushing anything down the toilets or sinks; and by cleaning out your medicine chest then taking the items to the DEA Take Back site nearest to you.
If you feel inclined, ask how your medicines will be disposed. If the answers are not to your liking, we encourage you to take up a discussion in your local community or with your state’s representatives toward preventing any contamination as well as reducing unnecessary drug hazards in other ways.
