I personally don't currently take any mediation, but due
to a family crisis I am learning all kinds of stuff about medication as I help
my mother and father-in-law in their current circumstances.
I recently helped my father-in-law in organizing his
current set of medications he takes. I
was guided by my wife, who does take medication. Well after sorting out all his pills and
getting them organized we had 5 bottles of medication to get rid of. I would like to get rid of these medications
properly, rather than just throw them in the garbage where some person or
animal could get a hold of them and harm themselves.
So what are the options out there?
I found two different options. One is to use the National Take Back
Initiative. This program runs once a
year in October. They have a site you
can go to and enter your Zip code to find the closest drop off sites near you https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/SEARCH-NTBI/
[1]
This year the collection day is Oct 26 2013.
So by the time you read this it will have passed.
Another method I found is at Walgreens. Walgreens has a Safe Medication Disposal
Program, you can read more about it here http://www.walgreens.com/topic/sr/sr_safe_medication_disposal.jsp
[2]
The long and short of it is you can go to your local
Walgreens store and buy a TakeAway return system. I did just that this morning. Walgreens charged me $3.99 + tax for it.
Here is a front image of the box
Here is the back side.
The package contained one envelope with a pre-paid
postage stamp on it and a set of instructions.
(I blacked out the USPS code in this image just in case)
Looking at the instructions there are a few types of
drugs you can't put in here. They say no
controlled prescription drugs. The short list of controlled drugs they give as
an example are
·
Addreall
·
Ambien
·
Hydrocodone
·
Morphine
·
Oxycodone
·
Ocycontin
·
Percocet
·
Phentermine
·
Ritalin
·
Valium
·
Vicodin
·
Xanax
In my case none the drugs I had to send in were
"controlled" drugs, so I simple slipped them in pill bottle and
all. In fact they want you to keep them
in their pill bottles. There are some
further instructions for liquids.
I easily put 5 pill bottles in this bag. I would guess it should hold about 10ish.
I sealed it up and took it to a local mail drop. I am in a condo and we don't have a place to
put large packages going out so I had to drive by and put it in an old style
mailbox.
Overall I like the kit,
I wish it were free but $4 is not bad to have the ease of mind your
pills are being disposed of properly.
References
[1] National Take Back
Initiative Collection Site Search
Visited 10/2013
[2] Safe Medication Disposal
Program
Visited 10/2013
Thank you for being such an inspiration to me and others around you.
ReplyDelete