Safeguard your medicine

It sounds simple enough, share a little of your ADHD drug with a few of your friends in school, because hey, they are just ADHD drugs, no big deal.

Except it is a big deal.

The East Jordan High School student who provided the drugs, along with six other students, were suspended recently and could face criminal charges in the incident.

That should be enough of an impact to make folks sit up and take notice, although we doubt it will. You see, those things happen to other people, not to us.

Wrong, on so many counts.

Drug overdoses, from illegal and legal prescriptions, are a leading cause of death in the United States.
More and more, deaths from legal drugs have risen throughout the area, as a series by our investigative team showed earlier this year. The most recent? Two young people from downstate who died in their apartment on Mackinac Island, where they were working for the summer.

The admonition to not share your drugs with someone else is routinely ignored by drug users and abusers alike. Who hasn’t shared an antibiotic, a little painkiller (that’s better than aspirin but not THAT strong), something that worked for you and should probably work for the friend or relative, too? An occurrence that happens way, way too often.

And while ADHD drugs have not been implicated in area deaths, there are plenty of methadone and oxycodone painkiller deaths to suggest that way too often, someone is stealing or buying excess pills from friends and families and turning them loose on the street.

So there are a couple of things to do, the number one being to lock up your prescription drugs so that they are inaccessible to any prying fingers. Given the price of drugs on the street, don’t give temptation a chance to make good on a drug sale.

Second, guard your prescriptions. If you haven’t filled it, someone else will if they find it, trust us.

Third, if you have drugs that you are no longer using, take advantage of drug turn-in programs that dispose of your unused pharmaceuticals. Call area sheriffs’ departments or the Emmet County Department of Public Works about upcoming drug disposal opportunities. DO NOT flush them down the toilet, they pollute area waterways if you do that.

Part of modern medicine is a range of medicines that can cure disease and alleviate pain.

When those drugs are used inappropriately, they can also kill.

Don’t contribute to that, keep track of your drugs and keep them out of the hands of those who would sell or abuse them — and may be killed by them.
Article source: Petoskey News-Review
http://www.petoskeynews.com/articles/2009/06/17/editorials/doc4a38ef5ed0bfa281197216.txt
Article Posted By :Dee

For those of you that are unsure of how or where to dispose of your old medications, you can Visit,
The Office of National Drug Control Policy 2009