WILLISTON – In a relatively short period of time, an effort to collect and dispose of Vermonters’ unused prescription opioids has caught on in a big way.
Vermont State Police on Monday announced that six barracks around the state are now hosting secure drop boxes for prescription disposal. That means such boxes are available at more than 50 police and sheriff’s locations around the state.
Lamoille County Sheriff Roger Marcoux – who has helped lead a statewide prescription-disposal project – said that effort has collected more than 12,000 pounds of drugs in about a year’s time.
The idea is to offer as many disposal sites as possible in order to reduce the amount of opioids available for diversion and misuse, state Health Commissioner Mark Levine said.
“We really believe the approach should be to have a smorgasbord of opportunities, because this is something that’s not on everyone’s mind every day, and medications get put in medicine cabinets and left there without a further thought,” Levine said.
The effort to stanch the supply of prescription opioids is part of a broader effort to tackle the addiction epidemic, Levine said, adding that “many people who misuse prescriptions first got them from a friend’s or a relative’s medication cabinet.”
Vermont has enacted new rules designed to limit the number of opioids doctors prescribe. Such measures are also a cause for concern among some who worry they could be causing unnecessary pain, but the state’s largest insurer says the regulations have resulted in hundreds of thousands of fewer pills prescribed.
Collecting unused drugs is another way of getting at the problem. Such efforts – which allow residents to drop off prescriptions anonymously, with no questions asked – are an extension of the twice-a-year National Prescription Drug Take Back Day organized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The Lamoille County Sheriff’s coordination of a statewide drop-box program has received financial backing from the state Health Department, which maintains a long list of disposal sites on its website.
The newly announced state police drop boxes are at the Derby, New Haven, Royalton, St. Albans, Westminster and Williston barracks. Also, boxes soon will be available at the Middlesex and St. Johnsbury barracks.
The boxes are donated by CVS Pharmacy.
There are two state police barracks – Rutland and Shaftsbury – where the boxes won’t be placed “because we don’t have the space or security available,” said Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Anderson.
It isn’t as simple, Anderson said, as setting up a box and walking away. “Some of the barracks, we had to put in security cameras in order to make sure that we had them under surveillance 24/7,” he said.
Marcoux, whose office handles unused-prescription pickups around the state, said security is key. He said the drugs are weighed three times – first when they’re collected from boxes, again when they’re delivered to a Lamoille County storage facility and again when they’re given to the DEA for incineration.
At the new drop-off points inside state police barracks, troopers “will have no access to these boxes,” Anderson said. “The fewer people who are involved in handling the drugs that are coming out of these boxes, the less opportunity there is for any type of diversion.”
In addition to law enforcement sites for drug collection, officials said there are drop boxes at other locations including hospitals and pharmacies. Also, the Health Department recently introduced free mail-back envelopes for unused prescriptions.