Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet Program To Continue

By Martha Coville

Drug Center Pharmacy has extended its collection of unused or expired drugs. The Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet program will now run through Friday, May 2.

Cathy Dahlmeyer is the manager of the Church Hill Road pharmacy. “It’s in connection with Earth Day,” she said of the collection program. Ms Dahlmeyer explained that the state environmental protection agency emphatically discourages flushing medications down the toilet or sink. “It ends up in the drinking water,” she said.

“It’s ‘Seal and Conceal,’” Ms Dahlmeyer said of the newest state Department of Environmental Protection guidelines for disposing of solid medications like pills or capsules.

“I’ve got quite a bit of old meds back there from the collection program. What you’re supposed to do for solid medications like pills and capsules is add water to them,” she said. “This will dissolve them. Then you’re supposed to duct tape the container shut.”

The pharmacy is following guidelines set forth by the Connecticut DEP, which are online at ct.gov/dep/p3 (look for the link How to Dispose of Prescription Medicines and Over-The-Counter Products on the right side of the page, under Featured Links).

“These are what we’re following,” she said, “Patients and consumers can do the same thing.”

The website instructs patients to conceal the duct-taped medicine bottle in a “non-transparent bag or container such as an empty margarine tub to ensure that the contents cannot be seen.”

Liquid medicines, she said, should be concealed in a similar manner. “What you want to do with liquid medicine is to add something like salt or flour or charcoal, something that will make people not want to drink it.”

Finally, Ms Dahlmeyer said, when she disposes of medications, she makes sure they cannot harm raccoons or other animals rummaging through garbage cans on collection day. This can be as simple as tightly sealing the container’s lid.

What Some People Bring In

Although this is the first year the Drug Center has sponsored a Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet week, it is not the pharmacy’s first venture into community service. “We do the sharps containers,” Ms Dahlmeyer said. “You can bring any medical sharps to us and we’ll dispose of them.

 “We did the medicine disposal because Donna Culbert, from the Health District, called us,” Ms Dahlmeyer said. The program is sponsored by Newtown Prevention Council. Ms Dahlmeyer was also contacted by Judy Blanchard, the District Health Coordinator, who also asked the pharmacy to offer the service.

But Ms Dahlmeyer also said, “We’ve always taken medicine from people who wanted to get rid of them. Sometimes people will bring things in because a relative has died, and they don’t know how to dispose of it.” Often family members discover a relative has been stockpiling medications like painkillers for many years. “You wouldn’t believe what some people bring in,” she said.

The Newtown Prevention Council is working with other local groups, including Newtown Parent Connection, to educate parents about the proper disposal of prescription drugs.

According to the Prevention Council, prescription medications have become the drug of choice for many teenagers. Abuse of medications, especially opiates and painkillers, is exceeded only by abuse of marijuana.