Prescription drug ‘take-back’ day to focus on protecting kids from ingesting leftover opioid pills.
Nothing good can come of having unused and unneeded medications sitting in a household cabinet—and if there are children around with access to those cabinets and a natural curiosity about what’s in the bottles, something bad could easily happen. Worse yet, depending on the drug a child might ingest, that something bad could turn out to be catastrophic.
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is offering families an opportunity to eliminate this danger from their home by disposing of their unwanted pills safely, responsibly and permanently. On April 27 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., CHLA is hosting the Narcan Teaching/Distribution and Opioid Takeback at La Cañada High School. You can drop your unused prescription medications, including opioids, into a specially designated, federally approved bin and remove all possibility of their ending up in the hands and then the stomach of your child.
“This is a safe, no-questions-asked event,” CHLA pediatric surgeon Lorraine Kelley-Quon, MD, MSHS, FACS, FAAP, says.
Dr. Kelley-Quon and her research group, the Health Outcomes and Policy Effects (HOPE) Lab, are conducting the event, with co-sponsors the USC Institute for Addiction Science and the USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. It will run in connection with National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, put on by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). If La Cañada High School is inconvenient for you, you can deposit your excess medication at any local collection site listed on the DEA’s website.
April 24, 2024
by Jeff Weinstock