North Carolina's Operation Medicine Drop: Results From One of the Nation's Largest Drug Disposal Programs

Fleming, Eleanor; Proescholdbell, Scott; Sachdeva, Nidhi; Alexandridis, Apostolos A.; Margolis, Lewis H.; Ransdell, Kelly

doi:10.18043/ncm.77.1.59

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“… 31 Another study reported the success of a medication take-back program in North Carolina that hosted more than 1395 take-back events between 2010 and 2014. 33 During this time frame, there was a 597% and 35.8% increase in the number of participating law enforcement agencies and counties, respectively. 33 Similar success was reported for prescription medication take-back efforts based in eleven Maine cities during six DEA national medication take-back events from 2011 to 2013.…”

Section: Proper Medication Disposal: An Environmental Solutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 30 Over the last few years, published studies have suggested public interest in these programs as well as the potential of these programs to reduce nonmedical use of prescription medications and the environmental impact of improper medication disposal. 31 – 33 A survey was conducted to determine the level of interest patients had for participating in a community pharmacy-based medication take-back program for disposal of unused, unwanted, or expired (UUE) medications. Of the 62 survey respondents, 61% reported interest in participating in a medication take-back program, while 57% reported having no UUE medications at home.…”

Section: Proper Medication Disposal: An Environmental Solutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Medication disposal practices: Increasing patient and clinician education on safe methods

et al. 2018

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Recent research suggests that the nation’s water supply is contaminated with trace pharmaceuticals that exert a negative environmental and public health impact. Incorrect medication disposal methods (e.g. flushing medications down the toilet or drain) are a significant factor contributing to the presence of medication compounds in the aquatic environment. In this commentary, we provide a summary of the existing data on pharmaceuticals in the nation’s water as well as the role of improper medication disposal methods on water contamination. We discuss statistics on improper medication disposal practices among patients and clinicians as well as recent advances in proper medication disposal methods as a solution to this problem. Currently, many patients and clinicians are not aware of proper medication disposal practices. We summarize the importance of patient and clinician education in advancing environmental-safe medication disposal methods.

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Section: Proper Medication Disposal: An Environmental Solutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Proper Medication Disposal: An Environmental Solutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Medication disposal practices: Increasing patient and clinician education on safe methods

et al. 2018

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“…These programs are popular, and the literature on them is generally favorable, although all but devoid of high-quality evidence concerning effects on final outcomes, such as overdose (Haegerich et al, 2014). Rather, the literature finds that the programs raise awareness (e.g., Yanovitzky, 2016) and that substantial quantities of drugs are brought in for collection (DEA, 2015b;Stewart et al, 2015)-for example, 69.6 million unit doses of medication (of all kinds) brought back in to Operation Medicine Drop in North Carolina (Fleming et al, 2016) over 4 years. However, while the quantities may be substantial in absolute terms, they represent a very small proportion of the total dispensed.…”

Section: Drug Take-back Programsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic

Bonnie¹,

Ford²,

Phillips³

2017

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Years of sustained, coordinated, and vigilant effort will be required to contain the present opioid epidemic and ameliorate its harmful effects on society. At least 2 million people have an opioid use disorder (OUD) involving prescription opioids, and almost 600,000 have an OUD associated with heroin (HHS, 2016). These numbers are likely to increase in the coming years, regardless of what policies are put in place. Follow-up studies of individuals receiving treatment for OUD involving heroin (e.g., Hser et al., 2001) find very high rates of premature mortality (in the neighborhood of one-third) due to overdose or other complications of the disorder. Thus, even if the nation ramps up treatment availability substantially and immediately, death rates will climb and quality of life will be dramatically reduced for many people for years to come. Likewise, the continued progression of still more people from prescription opioid use to OUD will demand sustained and coordinated effort to establish and implement the scientifically grounded policies and clinical practices necessary to reshape prescribing practices and reduce the occurrence of new cases of prescription opioid-induced OUD. 1 What should be done to contain the opioid epidemic and to prevent new cases of iatrogenic addiction and associated overdose, death, and other harms? The purpose of this chapter is to review available evidence on strategies that have been used to address the problems of opioid misuse, OUD, 1 Vigilance will also be needed to reduce the risk of similar problems in the future with other classes of medications for which there exists demand for clinical uses other than the indicated conditions and/or active black markets for their resale. 269RCTs, however, are rare for policies that require implementation at the level of an entire jurisdiction, nor are they ethically permissible in many policy contexts. In the absence of RCTs, other sources of evidence are needed to estimate the counterfactual outcome distribution under different strategies. One such source of evidence is the collection of data on individuals who happen to receive the strategies of interest as part of their routine care, often from electronic health records. The so-called observational analyses based on such data are attempts to emulate the RCT that cannot be conducted (the target trial). In these observational analyses, however, the comparability of the groups receiving each strategy is not guaranteed. In the real world, for example, the restricted opioid prescription policy might more likely be applied to individuals visiting providers in urban health care settings who also received other interventions to reduce the risk of addiction. As a result, a direct comparison of the outcome distribution between those who received each strategy would be confounded by the concomitant interventions.Observational analyses attempt to eliminate bias due to confounding by adjusting for all measured prognostic factors that are distributed differentially between the groups. For example, the ...

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“…Drop, a drug take-back event based in North Carolina, 69.6 million unit doses of medication were collected [58]. Drug takeback efforts across several cities in Maine were associated with the return of 13,599 medications among 1,049 individuals [59].…”

Section: Proper Drug Disposal As a Mechanism For Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Proper Drug Disposal: Studying a Solution to Household Prescription and Over-the- Counter Drug Abuse

Kinrys¹,

Gold²,

Nierenberg³

2016

J Drug Abuse (edi(n))

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For the average American, prescription and over-the-counter drugs are a standard component of a daily health regimen with 35% of American adults consuming over-the-counter (OTC) medicines on a daily basis [1] and 48.7% of Americans reporting use of at least one prescription drug in a 30 day period [2]. Data indicate that OTC medications serve a crucial role in helping treat a host of common health problems such as pains, aches, sprains, and rashes [1,3] with 81% of adults utilizing OTC medications as a first response treatment for common medical symptoms [4]. With OTC sales at approximately 31 billion dollars in 2014, OTC drugs importantly provide low-cost treatments to individuals in underserved communities [4].In a thirteen-year span from 1999 to 2012, prescription drug use in the United States demonstrated a notable increase [5]. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Kantor et al. [5]. found that 51% of US adults reported use of any prescription drug from 1999 to 2000 while 59% reported use of any prescription drug from 2011-2012. A recent Mayo Clinic study estimated that 70% of Americans are on at least one prescription drug [6].Widespread prescription and OTC medication use in the United States has produced an environment in which drugs are highly present and, thus, readily accessible to any given individual [7]. This ease of access is reflected in many areas. First, OTC drugs can be easily purchased in pharmacies and drug stores. Further, many individuals have access to expired or unused drugs in their home cabinets [8,9]. These avenues create opportunities for individuals to share excess drugs with friends and family members or to consume the drugs themselves. In many cases, these medications are not consumed as prescribed -specifically, they are consumed at higher doses or by non-intended recipients [10,11]. Thus, high accessibility can, in turn, contribute to misuse and abuse of prescription and OTC drugs [12]. Proper Drug Disposal: Studying a Solution to Household Prescription and Over-theCounter Drug Abuse AbstractWith 6.5 million Americans misusing a prescription drug in 2014 and 12% of American teenagers indicating lifetime use of over-the-counter cold medicine or cough syrup for getting high, misuse and abuse of prescription and over-thecounter drugs remains a major problem in the United States. Prescription and over-the-counter drug abuse often results from unused or unwanted medications remaining in the household cabinet. A potential solution to this problem lies in drug take-back programs which allow individuals to bring unused medications back to designated facilities for safe and proper disposal. In this commentary, we discuss the current state of drug take-back programs and their relevance to prescription and over-the-counter drug abuse. We conclude with suggestions on future directions in drug disposal that can help fight against prescription and overthe-counter drug abuse.

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North Carolina's Operation Medicine Drop: Results From One of the Nation's Largest Drug Disposal Programs

Cited by 8 publications

References 4 publications

Medication disposal practices: Increasing patient and clinician education on safe methods

Medication disposal practices: Increasing patient and clinician education on safe methods

Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic

Proper Drug Disposal: Studying a Solution to Household Prescription and Over-the- Counter Drug Abuse

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