Reduce Non-Medical Access to Prescription Drugs

Introductory Paragraph

It is essential that people who have prescription medications in their homes store them safely. When people begin to misuse prescription drugs, they often acquire them by stealing them from family, relatives, friends or from homes that they enter for other reasons (work, open houses, breaking and entering). If prescription drugs are safely stored, misuse can be stopped earlier, because people who have not yet developed a dependence on opioids usually do not go directly to illegal opioids like heroin or fentanyl. Prescription drugs that are not safely stored can also be accidentally taken by young children or by curious pre-teens.

Key Information

Safe storage of prescription drugs within the home has been identified as key priority strategy by many organizations and coalitions. Even if a community does an excellent job of reducing prescriptions and taking back or disposing of unused opioids, there will still be a lot of opioids in communities. Thirty-two percent of American adults received a prescription for opioids in the two years preceding 2018In 2019, 22.1% of U.S. adults with chronic pain used a prescription opioid in the past 3 months. Many others are legitimately being prescribed opioids for short-term pain management that can be misused, stolen or accidentally consumed by children.

Failure to securely store prescription drugs contributes to the opioid epidemic and other health hazards in several ways.

1. Easy access to prescription drugs can lead to initial experimentation, especially by teens.

2. Stealing prescription drugs, which is much easier when they are commonly available in unlocked medicine cabinets, is often a step toward more destructive misuse.

3. Easy access to unsecured opioids or other prescription drugs contributes to theft by people who sell them or give them away.

4. Children who access unsecured drugs sometimes take them, thinking they are candy.

Staggering Statistics

• Only 2 in 10 who have dangerous medications—such as opioid pain pills, stimulants used to treat ADHD, and sedatives—lock them up Nearly 70% of prescription opioid medications kept in homes with children are not stored safely.   

• A recent study of adults living in households with children, prescription opioids were stored in a locked or latched place in only 32.6% of households with young children and 11.7% with older children.

• More than 1,600 teens begin abusing prescription drugs each day.

• 1 in every 4 teens in America say they have misused or abused a prescription drug at least once.

• 60,000 kids under the age of 5 accidentally ingest these dangerous drugs every year and wind up in emergency rooms, according to data from the CDC

• 12-17 year old abuse prescription drugs more than ecstasy, heroin, crack/cocaine and methamphetamines combined.

• In one study, only 8.6% of the respondents reported locking up their opioid medication and only 20.9% reported using a latched location.

• The National Drug Intelligence Center reported that $184 million in prescription drug thefts occurred in 2010 — a 350 percent increase since 2007. They note that older people are especially vulnerable to theft of prescription drugs. They also indicate that over half of teens, ages 12 and up, obtained prescription drugs from a friend or family member "for free."

Succesful Strategies

Education - The most secure way to keep prescription medications is in a locked storage box up and away If locking them is not an option keep them stored in a secured place in your home that is up and away from children. Keep a medication log so you know what medications you have and how many you have of each medication.
You should try to do an inventory of all the medicines you have at least once a year, preferably every six months.

Medications whose labels specify that refrigeration is necessary should always be kept in the refrigerator. The medicine cabinet in a bathroom is often not the best place to store prescriptions. They should be stored in a cool dry place. Humidity, heat, and the change in temperatures in the bathroom can alter the potency of some medications.  Some storage devices, such as iKeyp, can help protect medications from humidity, even if stored in bathrooms.

Relevant Research

Case Study of Successful Coalition Campaign with TimerCaps-  South Kingston Program for Prevention and Rebels Inspiring Positive Lifestyles joined forces to raise funds to send youth leaders to CADCA training. The coalition held community awareness events and garnered local news publicity for their cause.

Safe Medicine Storage: A look at the disconnect between parent knowledge and behavior

 

Impactful Federal, State, and Local Policies

 SAFE Solutions is an ever-growing platform. Currently limited information is readily available for this section. SAFE Project is dedicated to providing communities with the most relevant and innovative materials. We will continue to regularly monitor and make updates accordingly with community input and subject matter expert collaboration. Please check back soon.

 

Available Tools and Resources

Environmental Strategies to Prevent the Non-Medical Use of Prescription Drugs

 

 

Promising Practices

SafeHomes Coalition helps communities start programs to raise awareness of the proper use, storage and disposal of prescription drugs. (They can help your community start a chapter.) This SafeHomes PSA provides more information.

Up and Away Campaign
This campaign is designed to remind families about the importance of safe medicine storage. 

Launching Community-wide Collaborative Campaigns

Drug Disposal and Safe Storage Campaign
Many communities have done some education and awareness efforts to increase prescription drug disposal and safe storage, but there is potential to reach significantly more people by engaging a diverse group of cross-sector partners in a campaign.

Coalitions in Action: South Kingstown Partnership for Prevention Launches Med Safety Campaign

Up and Away Campaign- Put your medicines up and away out of sight

The National Action Plan for Adverse Drug Event Prevention- (ADE Action Plan) identifies common, preventable, and measurable adverse drug events and aligns the efforts of Federal health agencies to reduce patient harms from these ADEs nationwide.

Protect logo -The PROTECT Initiative is an innovative collaboration led by CDC. PROTECT unites public health agencies, private sector companies, professional organizations, consumer/patient advocates, and academic experts to keep children safe from unintended medication overdoses.