Free Medicine Not Always Best Prescription

By IRENE MAHER
News Channel 8 Medical Editor
Published: May 30, 2008
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/may...n/?life-health

It's a tempting offer: Free prescription medications for people who need them the most - the poor, the uninsured, the homeless. Families of people who have died from diabetes, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease call the Judeo Christian Health Clinic in Tampa every week hoping to donate leftover medications. Some bottles are full or hardly used and bear price tags in the hundreds of dollars. But the clinic's executive director, Kelly Nelson, must decline. "We can't use them," she says, "Unfortunately."

I get the calls, too. People want to donate perfectly good medications that were prescribed to a spouse, a parent or a relative and want to know whether there's a health care facility that can use them. They hate to throw them away and know the need for such medications is great. But if the packaging or container has been opened, facilities like the health clinic can't dispense them. And, legally, you aren't supposed to take another person's medication. "If they've been prescribed to someone else or if the seal has been broken, we can't use it," Nelson says.

Nelson also must refuse seemingly good, much-needed prescription medications when the drugs have expired. That's tough for everyone. Who doesn't hate to toss medications that were fine in April, but are suddenly off-limits in May? Who isn't holding on to an old bottle of antibiotics or pain pills, just in case?

Additional excerpt:
By far, the best way to dispose of medications is to watch for a pharmaceutical take-back program.

The next Pasco Pill Drop will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Aug. 23 in front of the Gulfview Mall in Port Richey. "The concept is: drive up, drop off and drive out," Dede says. "You don't even have to get out of your car."

READ FULL ARTICLE...comments allowed at the end of the article