Starting next month, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will let U.S. pharmacies and clinics accept customers’ unused prescription medication. Officials said the change in federal regulations gives people trying to overcome addiction another means of safely disposing of unused opiods.
Under current federal controlled substance laws, clinics and pharmacies cannot accept unused pills, but consumers can hand in leftover medication to law enforcement agencies that participate in drug-take-back programs — multi-city safe drug disposal events that allow people to relinquish unused medication and learn about the effects of drug abuse. According to the Justice Department, a nationwide collection effort in April yielded 390 tons of prescription drugs from more than 6,000 sites.
The DEA’s newest policy represents the final rule of the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010, the law that initially launched the national take-back program. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the expansion of the DEA program earlier this week in a video posted on the Justice Department’s website during which he pointed out that nearly 40 percent of teenagers who abused prescription medication got them from family medicine cabinets.
“These shocking statistics illustrate that prescription drug addiction and abuse represent nothing less than a public health crisis,” Holder said in the video message. “Every day, this crisis touches — and devastates — the lives of Americans from every state, in every region, and from every background and walk of life.”
According to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 100 people succumb to prescription drug abuse daily. The majority of these deaths occur in the country’s Southwest and Appalachian regions. Experts say that low-income, rural dwellers and people who “doctor shop” — the practice of obtaining different kinds of prescription medication from different kinds of doctors — stand the greatest chance of overdosing.
Prescription painkillers create feelings of euphoria that can sedate users and slow down their breathing. Since the 1990s, rates of abuse have more than tripled. Today, more than 12 million people across the country use opioids for nonmedical reasons. Three-quarters of prescription drug abusers said they often use medication prescribed to someone else.
That’s why many people, including U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), publicly applauded the DEA’s recent efforts.
“By creating commonsense ways to securely dispose of unused or unwanted prescription drugs, we are taking direct action to combat prescription drug abuse that affects so many West Virginians and Americans,” Manchin said in a news release on Monday.
“In order to build strong, drug-free communities, we all must fight against prescription drug abuse by safely discarding old prescribed medications to the appropriate officials so that these potentially dangerous drugs don’t end up in the wrong hands,” Manchin added. “I applaud the DEA’s new rules and remain reassured that they will help save lives and curb the abuse and misuse of prescription drugs.”