DRUG CONTROL ON A BAD TRIP WITH THE ENVIRONMENT

If you're hoarding leftover or expired prescription drugs, the kind
that someone might want to chew or snort to get high, the federal
government has some advice.

* Remove the pills from their original containers.

* Mix them with an unappetizing substance, such as kitty litter or
coffee grounds, and put them in empty cans or sealed bags so they
aren't eaten by children, pets or Dumpster divers.

* Then, throw them in the trash.

* If the drugs are particularly powerful and addictive painkillers or
stimulants, flush them down the toilet instead of disguising them in
waste, if the label says the drugs are flushable.

This may sound like a lot of trouble, but it's for a good reason.
Accidental poisonings and prescription drug abuse are on the rise, and
the misuse is increasingly prevalent among teens and young adults.

It's now the second most common illegal drug problem in the nation
behind marijuana, mostly because meds are so easy to get. More than 70
percent of the drug abusers say they get the pills from a friend or
relative for free, said Jennifer de Vallance, spokeswoman for the
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

But the guidelines, issued earlier this year by the office and several
other federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency,
have a downside: They're not as environmentally friendly as some would
like.

The best way to destroy unwanted medications is to toss them in a
waste incinerator with the proper controls, but this requires a mail
or take-back program, something that isn't uniformly available in the
U.S.

Some pharmacies will take unwanted medicine off your hands, and
communities offer one-day collection events. You also can ship them to
the needy overseas, but "there's no long-term solution to this growing
and potentially dangerous waste stream," said Susan Boehme, a coastal
sediment specialist with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG).

Throwing drugs in the trash means they have the potential to reach
streams, lakes and other waterways through runoff and leachate if they
don't make it to lined landfills.

And even though people drop about $1 billion worth of unwanted drugs
into the toilet every year, flushing is a big no-no. The folks at the
IISG never recommend flushing, and the Illinois Poison Control Center
is revising its recommendations to try to minimize the common
practice, Boehme said.

When pharmaceuticals are flushed, they pass untreated through sewage
plants and can contaminate nearby waterways. Even small quantities of
everyday prescription drugs are potentially harmful to aquatic organisms.

According to the current federal guidelines, only certain drugs should
be flushed, including Actiq (fentanyl citrate), OxyContin tablets
(oxycodone) and Daytrana transdermal patch (methylphenidate).

But the reason these popular and potent drugs are deemed flushable has
nothing to do with the environment; it's the best way to keep these
them out of the hands of non-patients. The flushing directions are
included in the labeling to improve the safety profile of the drug
products, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

The best thing to do, then, is to follow another federal guideline:
Take advantage of community pharmaceutical take-back programs when you
can. In Kendall County, residents can drop off medicines at the police
station at any time. The Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County
has an ongoing medicine drop-off program for unused prescriptions,
expired over-the-counter drugs and needles known as "sharps." And if
you're interested in starting your own take-back program, the IISG has
a resource kit (iisgcp.org/unwantedmeds). The agency also is working
with the Chicago Department of Environment.

"The advice to remove labels, dissolve the pills -- which is often not
simple -- and then mix drugs with food scraps and waste seems quite
complicated," Boehm said. "We'd like to get at the heart of this
issue. Why were the drugs prescribed or not taken to begin with? It's
a huge waste of health-care dollars. ... There has to be a better way
than only dealing with waste at the end of its life cycle."