Three Medication Habits

Medication Habit: Secure

Would you know if any pills were missing?

Securing your medications is an important and easy way for you to help keep your family and friends safe. Most people think only those with little ones or teens need to secure their meds. While children are more susceptible to accidental ingestion, anyone experimenting with drugs or struggling with a substance use disorder may sneak your medications.

According to Partnership to End Addiction, two-thirds of teens who misused pain relievers in the past year say they got them from family and friends. This makes safeguarding medicine in the home vitally important. Safe storage and proper medication disposal diminish the opportunities for easy access.

The best place to start securing is by ensuring that you’re aware of all medications in your home and storing them safely. You should also have a discussion with your kids and family about the dangers of medicine abuse. Make changes today. You could save a life.

Take the following preventative steps:

• Use a lockbox rather than a medicine cabinet for your medications
• Keep that lockbox in a safe place, such as a locked closet
• Safeguard all medicines by monitoring quantities and controlling access.
• Take note of how many pills are in each of your prescription bottles or pill packets, and keep track of refill schedules. Regularly check to see if anything is missing. This goes for your own medicine, as well as for your kids and other members of the household. If you find you need to refill your medicine more often than expected, that could indicate a problem.
• If your child has been prescribed a medicine, be sure YOU control the medicine and monitor dosages and refills. You need to be especially vigilant with medicines that are known to be addictive and commonly abused by teens, such as opioids, benzodiazepines, and stimulants.
• Warn your youngsters that taking prescription or over-the-counter (OTC) drugs without a doctor’s supervision can be just as dangerous and potentially as lethal as taking street drugs.
• Make sure your friends, parents of your child’s friends, neighbors, and relatives — especially grandparents — are also aware of the risks. Encourage them to regularly monitor the medicines in their own homes.
• Properly dispose of old, expired, or unused medicines. Find a safe disposal site.

Medication Habit: Dispose

Disposing of your medications properly is the last step in safe medication habits and can benefit your whole community. Over 90% of patients who were prescribed opioids after surgery didn’t properly dispose of their leftover medicines. Don’t be one of them!

Dispose of unused medications so they aren’t tempting or available for misuse by family or friends.

Dispose of your unused medications when the reason you were prescribed them is no longer relevant. It’s important to get rid of all those partially-used prescriptions that so many of us have lying around. Holding on to that prescription “just in case” you need it again one day is not a good idea. Any accident or impaired driving charge that occurs while under the influence of drugs taken not as prescribed or taken outside the prescribed period can lead to enhanced charges, including charges of possession of controlled substances because, technically speaking, those medications are illegal.

Medication Drop Boxes

Dispose of your unused/expired medications at any of the medication drop box locations in Kenosha County. Remember to cross out personal information or peel off the label and place all medication in a sealed bag before putting it in a drop box. View accepted items and find a medication drop box.

DisposeRx

Dispose of unused prescriptions using DisposeRx, a simple in-home medication disposal solution that uses non-toxic polymers to permanently physically and chemically sequester dangerous prescription drugs. DisposeRx works for powders, pills, tablets, capsules, liquids, and patches. Learn more about DisposeRx.