Duane Hicks
While district residents are encouraged to take all the medications they have cleaned out of their medicine cabinet back to their local pharmacy for safe and free disposal year round, this Friday (April 17) is the last day they do as part of the local seniors’ coalition’s fourth-annual “Medicine Cabinet Cleanout Contest.”
Participating pharmacies include the Fort Frances Clinic Dispensary, Pharmasave Downtown, Shoppers Drug Mart, Emo Drugs, and the ones at Safeway and Wal-Mart.
When you drop off your drugs at one of these locations, you’ll be entered in a draw to win a prize.
Six winners—one from each participating pharmacy—will be randomly drawn after the contest closes. They will receive gift cards from the respective pharmacy.
To qualify for the contest, the medications can be prescriptions that have expired or you no longer need to take, as well as old or expired non-prescription medications, including cough/cold medicine, pain relief drugs, first-aid substances, vitamins, and herbal products.
Hugh Dennis, co-ordinator for the Rainy River District Substance Abuse Prevention team, is hoping residents will take the time to take stock of any medications they have in their homes and turn in what they don’t need.
“[The contest] is a way to raise awareness and educate our citizens about the risks that are present if you don’t properly dispose of your unused prescription drugs,” Dennis said last week.
Dennis noted there are many reasons people should get rid of their old drugs, either during the contest or at any other time of the year.
“First of all, if drugs aren’t being used as prescribed by the doctor, they should be returned to the pharmacist for disposal in a safe and healthy manner,” he stressed, adding drugs should never be thrown in the garbage or flushed down the toilet.
Dennis explained contrary to what some people believe, unused drugs turned in at pharmacies are never recycled, but rather are put into a special container, picked up, and then incinerated by an environmental company.
This disposal method prevents medication from getting into the ground and, ultimately, municipal drinking water supplies.
Dennis also noted the purpose of a prescription drug is to treat an illness. After that purpose is served, there is no reason for a person to keep that prescription drug in their medicine cabinet—even if the person has not used up the entire prescription.
For one thing, drugs have expiration dates, which usually aren’t on the label, and become less effective over time. While many people don’t like to “waste” the unused drugs, especially when some can be costly, hanging on to them to use later is not a good idea, Dennis stressed.
Secondly, people should never try to self-medicate and take drugs if their previous health issue returns—they should leave that to doctors and pharmacists.
“If a senior is sick today with an illness and saves the drugs, that may not be the same drug that the doctor would prescribe should the person have another illness,” Dennis explained.
“Unfortunately, some folks feel the one drug fits all illnesses, and the fact is it may not be the same sort of medication that’s prescribed for the second illness.
“Self-medication is a dangerous practice because drugs are intended for a specific illness,” he warned. “To do otherwise is unsafe and not a healthy manner of dealing with illness.”
On a similar note, Dennis said people shouldn’t take it upon themselves to share their medications with spouses, family, and friends.
“People are very social and they care about each other, and they often will share drugs not with any intent other than to make others feel better,” he remarked. “That’s admirable, but it’s also dangerous because the drugs that somebody else may take could injure or harm them physically, or psychologically for that matter.
“The drugs aren’t meant for them,” he stressed. “Pharmacists and doctors should be the folks telling us what drugs we use.”
Yet another reason to properly dispose of drugs at a pharmacy is to prevent others from stealing and abusing them, or selling them to others to abuse.
Getting rid of any medications you’re not currently using reduces the chance of thefts and break-ins.
“Certain drugs are the focus of abuse,” Dennis noted. “If folks are prescribed a drug that deals with pain management, when that management cycle is completed, the drug should be returned to the pharmacist because, quite frankly, those drugs are the subject matter of break-and-enters and so forth by people that are addicted and have problems with Oxycontin and other opiate drugs.”
Dennis said prescription medications are the preferred means for drug-using youth to get “high.” By not having such pain medications in the home, it reduces access to them by children and grandchildren.
“If you have your drugs accessible in your medicine cabinet above your sink in your bathroom, it gives our young people the opportunity to borrow grandma and grandpa’s or mom and dad’s drugs, or for their friends to borrow or steal, as the case may be,” he remarked.
“If they are not given the opportunity, then we won’t ever have that tragedy where someone takes the drugs and overdoses and dies or severely injures themselves.
“If you lock up your ammunition for your firearms, the same practice would be recommended for your drugs,” he argued. “Frankly, if they are not available to people, then you are not going to have a problem.
“If you can’t find it, you can’t use it.”
The “Medicine Cabinet Cleanout Contest” is being held by the local seniors’ coalition and sponsored by the Rainy River District Substance Abuse Prevention team.
Public health educator Becky Holden said the contest has been a success in the past, and hopes it gets people cleaning out their medicine cabinets once again this year.
Forty-four people turned in total of 55 pounds of medication last year, including one who turned in a prescription from 1954 and another who dropped off 22 pounds of medication.
