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Speak Out
How should someone dispose of unwanted or expired medicine?
Say you’ve got a splitting headache. You go into the medicine cabinet and pull out a bottle of pain relievers, such as aspirin, Tylenol, or ibuprofen. But before you pop them into your mouth, you notice that they’ve expired. Now you’ve got two headaches.
You shouldn’t toss the drugs in the trash or flush them down the toilet because they will contaminate the environment if they reenter the water system. Traces of medicines have been found in drinking water.
“I used to flush unused ibuprofen down the toilet rather than have my small children consume them,” said Kirsten Calia, a mother from Connecticut, in an ABC News interview. “But now I know that there are great environmental ramifications to this.”
So how do you get rid of expired or unwanted drugs?
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While there is no one government authority regulating how we get rid of medicine, the Federal Drug Administration is responsible for making sure the drugs we take are safe. Part of the Department of Health and Human Services in the Executive Branch, the FDA tests and researches drugs to ensure their safety and effectiveness. This process takes years and requires hundreds of tests and clinical trials before medicines can be prescribed by your doctor.
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Several drugstore and supermarket chains have implemented medication disposal plans. For example, Walgreens implemented a Safe Medication Disposal Program. Customers buy a specially designed envelope in which they can mail all nonprescription drugs and most prescription drugs to a medication incinerator, where the drugs are disposed of properly.
Communities across the country have also created Drug Take-Back days, when people can drop off expired or unwanted drugs that are then disposed of properly. On the Drug Take-Back day, police stations allow residents to stop, drop and roll: A person stops by, drops off the drugs, and rolls on away. Once collected, the unwanted pills and medicines are sent to a medication incinerator, where they are destroyed.
In San Francisco, the city has legislation in the works to require drug companies to pay for the safe disposal of their drugs. The city already has a free mail-away disposal program that, at 18 months old, has distributed 8,000 envelopes, each costing the city $3.75.
“We are asking for the pharmaceutical industry to wise up and be a good corporate partner, to be a good neighbor here in San Francisco,” City Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said. “All we’re asking for is a bucket with a lid that is regulated so that people can have a controlled environment to bring back their medications to dispose of prudently – that’s it.”
Mirkarimi said the booming pharmaceutical industry is in a much better position to pay for drug disposal than the cash-strapped city.
A representative for the pharmaceutical industry has said that ultimately the consumer will have to pay for the program. If drug companies have to pay for disposal, they will add the cost to their products, raising the price of medicine.
What do you think!
How should someone get rid of unwanted or expired medicine? Who should pay for the cost of getting rid of old or unwanted medicine? Do you agree with San Francisco’s attempt at making the drug companies pay for disposing of their products? Join the discussion and let us know what you think!
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