2 weeks Ago By Nathan Bowe
DETROIT LAKES — Do you have any expired, unused, or unwanted medications at home? Don’t just ignore them, they could fall into the wrong hands. Don’t throw them in the garbage, they could damage the environment. And don’t flush them down the toilet, they could end up in the water supply, according to Vanessa Collmann, an RN with Becker County Public Health.
“It used to be a common thing, flush it down the toilet to get rid of it,” Collmann said. “Now it’s becoming a problem, it contaminates the water — the water treatment center can only do so much. It gets into the groundwater and harms the environment,” she said.
Instead, bring those unwanted medications to a free drug disposal site. Becker County has three of them — at the Becker County Sheriff’s Office, CVS pharmacy, and at Essentia Health St. Mary’s pharmacy.
Or if it’s a small amount, 45 pills or less, pick up an easy-to-use Deterra bag from Becker County Public Health. Inside a Deterra bag is a pod of activated carbon that binds to the active ingredient in the medication — deactivating it.“Keep all medication out of sight, out of reach and out of harm’s way,” especially from young children and pets, Collmann said.
She was at Essentia Health in Detroit Lakes on Friday with Katie Poppler-Vasey, a community health specialist at Essentia Health, to educate people about the dangers of old medications.“We gave out 40 Deterra bags today and we talked to 90 people,” Poppler-Vasey said.Many of the people the two nurses talked to didn’t know getting rid of old drugs is a problem.
The nurses set up an information booth outside the pharmacy at Essentia Health to let people know that National Drug-Take-Back Day is Friday, April 26.And there are a lot of old medications floating around out there that need to be taken back.There are approximately 150 million prescriptions for opioids per year in the U.
S. and opioids are present in nearly half of U.S.
households, according to data that Collmann attributed to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s common to store prescription medication in a medicine cabinet or kitchen cupboard, but that creates easy access for others, Collmann said, noting that 62% of teens choose to use prescriptions due to easy access in homes.“Be sure to keep all medications out of sight, out of reach, and locked,” she said, to help deter people from having access and potentially misusing a medication.It can be a serious problem: According to the Steve Rummler Hope Network, someone dies every 6 minutes from an accidental opioid overdose.
That makes unintentional overdose the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. — double the rate of death due to car crashes.
Opioids are responsible for greater than 70% of overdose deaths, and it’s a problem everywhere. In the last five years, more than 4,000 people have died from an overdose in Minnesota.So it’s good to know that Becker County Public Health also has nasal naloxone available free of charge.
It is legal for everyone to carry and administer naloxone to anyone experiencing an opioid overdose.But we’re talking about safely getting rid of drugs, so anyone who is interested can also get Deterra bags at Becker County Public Health (at 712 Minnesota Ave. in Detroit Lakes) during business hours on weekdays.
You can ask for a bag at the front desk, no questions asked.A Deterra bag can be used to dispose of medications more discretely, without any stigma. Using a Deterra bag could be especially helpful to those who live in rural areas and may have difficulty getting to a designated take-back location.
The Deterra bag permanently and irreversibly destroys the medication, making it unavailable for misuse. It can then be safely disposed of in the household garbage.And the bags can also be used for THC-based products, vape cartridges, and illicit drugs, which cannot be disposed of at the take-back locations.
Here’s how to dispose of medications at a take-back site: Leave in the original container. Be sure to remove or black out identifying information, such as your name and birth date from the label. Follow instructions posted at the take-back site.
Hypodermic needles are another issue. None of the take-back sites accept needles or other “sharps,” which need to be put into a disposable sharps container.You can buy one at the pharmacy or just use a hard plastic container like a laundry detergent bottle.
Put unwanted needles and other sharps in the bottle, screw the cap on tight, tape it shut with a strong tape, and throw it away with the household garbage.It’s best to clean out unwanted medications at least once a year.]]>.
