48 THE QUEENS COURIER • HEALTH & WELLNESS • OCTOBER 18, 2018 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
health & wellness
Keep your family safe: Get rid of unused prescription opioids
Want to help keep your family and community
safe? Get rid of any unused prescription
opioids that may be in cabinets, drawers
or anywhere else you store medicine.
What are opioids?
Prescription opioids are powerful,
pain-reducing medicines. You can fi nd
them in pill forms, syrups or even prescription
patches. Commonly prescribed
opioids include hydrocodone, morphine
and oxycodone.
But they also can cause overdose deaths.
Every day, 115 Americans die from opioid
overdoses, according to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
Why leftover opioids
are dangerous
Th e United States is battling an opioid
crisis. A study published in the Journal of
the American Medical Association found
that up to 71 percent of opioid tablets
prescribed aft er surgery went unused.
Trouble with opioids can start at home,
where unused medicines are stored in
cabinets or drawers and are ingested
either intentionally or unintentionally by
people who do not have a medical need
for these prescriptions.
“We’re facing a public health tragedy right
in our own backyards; opioid addiction
and overdose aff ect communities across
America,” explained U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr.
Scott Gottlieb. “We know that people fi ghting
addiction oft en began by accessing prescription
opioids from a friend or family
member. It’s critical we all do our part
in safely disposing of these medicines once
they’re no longer needed as part of our
eff ort to ending this crisis.”
Protect your family and
your community
Make sure your medicines do not get
into the wrong hands. According to data
from the National Survey on Drug Use
and Health, half of people who misused
prescription opioids got them from a
friend or family member.
Unused opioids can also pose a risk to
kids. Even child-resistant containers cannot
completely prevent a child from taking
medicines prescribed to someone else.
Emergency departments see thousands of
patients for opioid overdose and addiction
each year, according to data from
the Nationwide Emergency Department
Sample. As more opioids are being prescribed
to adults, the risk of both accidental
and intentional exposure increases for
children and adolescents. Grandparents,
neighbors and others who take care of
children should make sure they have disposed
of any unused medicines. Opioids
also can be harmful to pets.
“In the last two decades, the FDA has
received heartbreaking reports of accidental
exposure to powerful prescription
pain medicines such as fentanyl patches
- most of them in children under 2
years old,” added FDA Center for Drug
Evaluation and Research Director Dr.
Janet Woodcock. “Th at’s why disposing
of unneeded medicines is such an
important step in keeping your family
safe.”
Disposing of unused medicines can
help turn the tide on the devastating opioid
crisis aff ecting so many American
families. Proper disposal of unused prescription
opioids saves lives. Learn more
at www.fda.gov/DrugDisposal.
Courtesy BPT
/DrugDisposal
/DrugDisposal
