Wednesday, January 11, 2012

What to do with your old meds?

It's been nearly a year since I was all doped up on giant Ibuprofen and Tylenol with Oxycodone (because of my c-section, not because I'm a recovering narcotics addict!), and as I was going through the bathroom closet, I noticed my old prescriptions. I pulled them out to remind myself that I had to figure out how to dispose of them. Interesting timing, because the next day I was diagnosed with the most painful strep throat I remember ever having. The doctor offered me some Vicodin, and I said if it was okay with her, I could just take my Oxycodone. Clearly, you need to be in more pain (like post-surgery pain) to not notice the major side effects of this drug, because I don't remember being so looped when I took it last year.

Anyway, I'm digressing. After I took one of those for my strep, I decided the side effects were worse than the pain, so I re-shelved the drugs and made a mental note that I had to figure out how to get rid of them.

It used to be recommended that you flushed your old drugs down the toilet so that little kids and addicts couldn't get a hold of them, but then they figured out that all the little water microbes and fishies and animals that eat the fishies were getting doped up on our old narcotics. So they had to come up with plan B. Thanks to Representative Paul Gardner, new regulations have helped solve the problem.

Conveniently, Ramsey county sent me a little postcard around this same time explaining how to get rid of our drugs. They now have a medicine collection program in which you drop off your drugs, and they dispose of them by burning them and converting that to energy.

Here are more reasons why we need to dispose of our drugs this way.

I'm sure there are programs in your city/county/region that allow you to dispose of your drugs. I encourage you to find out how to do it. Or, you know, wait til you have strep and knock yourself out for a few hours. 

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