[Pharmwaste] Items Accepted at Permanent Collection

[Shield, Margaret]

Lots of good comments in this email string, but here are some additional thoughts about rationales for collecting all medicines that may resonate with your local law enforcement partners.

1.  Public safety reasons for medicine take-back programs include preventing accidental poisonings, especially among youth and seniors.  Accidental poisonings in the home from over-the-counter medicines is a big problem, especially among children.  Check the statistics in your area or your state for more detail. 
In WA state:  
32% of child poisoning deaths in Washington were caused by someone else’s prescription medication and 26% were caused by over-the-counter medications.
Source: Sabel, J. (2004). Washington State Childhood Injury Report – Poisoning Chapter. WA DOH. Available online at: http://www.doh.wa.gov/hsqa/emstrauma/injury/pubs/wscir/WSCIR_Poisoning.pdf

2. Some over-the-counter medicines - notably, dextromethorphan cough suppressants- are abused, especially by youth, and therefore are also valuable to collect to prevent  misuse and entry into the spiral of drug abuse.

3.   To be effective, use of medicine take-back programs to reduce access to potentially dangerous medicines in our homes and communities need to be straightforward for consumers.  i.e. Keep it simple.  Many people are unsure of the difference between prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs, or have items in their medicine cabinets that they can't identify as one or the other.  This is confirmed by the FDA's education efforts trying to explain what is an over-the-counter drug versus a prescription drug.  Better to accept all drugs than to put an additional barrier on the consumer (or onto the collector) of having to sort out drugs into categories.

As Angela already mentioned, the environmental considerations for proper disposal of waste pharmaceuticals extend to all medicines, not just prescription drugs.

It's true that accepting all medicines will bring in larger volumes, and result in higher disposal costs.  And that puts a burden onto local law enforcement at a time when their budgets are shrinking.  Which bring us back to a key question in all this - who should be paying to provide safe, secure medicine take-back programs for our communities?

Margaret Shield PhD, Policy Liaison
Local Hazardous Waste Management Program in King County
(c) 206-265-9732
Protect Our Kids, Families, and Environment - www.TakeBackYourMeds.org


________________________________________
From: pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us [pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us] on behalf of ANGELA Deckers [adeckers at cityofboise.org]
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 12:33 PM
To: pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us
Subject: [Pharmwaste] Items Accepted at Permanent Collection

Greetings. I am hoping to get some feedback from other programs that have established pharm collection containers at local law enforcement agencies.

In our program, the evidence room managers of the participating police agencies are voicing frustration over the disposal of items in the collection containers that are viewed, by the agencies, as outside the realm of the intended use of the program. Examples would include vitamins, over-the-counter meds etc...

As public works staff, I facilitated the implementation of the program, come from the environmental side, and see the benefit of collecting some of these products. The police staff are looking at controlling illegal use of prescription meds. I would like them to collect these products but don't wish to alienate them to the point that they consider backing out all together.

Has anyone else run into this and what compromises were reached?   Where did your program draw the line?

Please respond to adeckers at cityofboise.org<mailto:adeckers at cityofboise.org>

Thanks. Your time in responding is much appreciated.


Angela Deckers
Hazardous Materials Coordinator
Boise Public Works
adeckers at cityofboise.org<mailto:adeckers at cityofboise.org>
208.384.3983
208.433.5650 fax