The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is seeking citizen feedback on making prescription drug disposal easier for consumers. Current federal law prohibits pharmacies from taking back prescription pain relievers. Federal law only allows law enforcement agencies (registered with DEA) to take back these drugs.
Research shows that individuals integrate health behaviors that are easy to implement with limited barriers. Currently the barriers surrounding the proper disposal of controlled drugs dispensed through a prescription are so significant that citizens are either (1) not disposing these harmful drugs – making them more available to abusers, or (2) citizens are disposing of the drugs irresponsibly in the toilet or in our landfills. The most environmentally friendly disposal method is incineration (method used by law enforcement and pharmacies).
SMART will be submitting the following recommendation to the DEA: "The DEA should, Rewrite DEA rules allowing pharmacies and hospitals to accept unused, outdated prescription pain relievers, thus reducing the significant barriers facing Utah County citizens to properly dispose of their prescription drugs."
AFTER THE DEA ALLOWS PHARMACIES TO TAKE BACK - THEN WHAT?
We need pharmacies and hospitals to support our effort of proper disposal. The Oregon legislature is currently considering a bill would require drug manufacturers to establish pharmaceutical take-back programs (for article see: http://news.opb.org/article/4479-bill-proposes-take-back-program-unused-consumer-drugs/.
SMART Utah County needs to follow Oregon's lead by working with legislators and pharmaceutical companies to reduce the availability of prescription drugs to abusers. We need representatives of these organizations working with us to reduce drug abuse. Do you agree?
3 comments:
Somehow we need to make disposal of narcotics easier. Legislating drug companies to take them back and dispose of them may just increase the cost of prescriptions in the US where we already pay a disproportionatly high cost for meds when compaired w/ the rest of the world. The legislative approach might be good for getting something done on a state level but perhaps if we worked locally we can keep the cost of drugs lower. I', in favor of getting DEA to change their rules allowing pharmacies to accept outdated or unused meds. They already have an accounting method for controlled substances and must handle out of date meds already.
How do the pharmacies dispose of the out of date meds? Would a take back program put an undue financial burden on locally owned pharmacies? What about all the mail order drugs? We still need local law enforcement in EVERY community to be signed on to accept these medications.
Pushing law enforcment assistance might be the easiest, and most cost effective, path to follow. One issue we are dealing with is a finding a resource who will dispose of the out of date meds without helping themselves to a few for personal problems. Cops already deal with controlled substances in an efficiant profesional manner. We might discuss spear heading a law enforcment training based on grants available for collection bins. The cost of incinerating these meds should not place an undue burden on participating agencies. Another avenue might be to adress the city mayors. If they buy off on the program they can
push the agenda from within. Most cities will at least entertain the idea if they see the program as a local public service.
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