Take-back event keeps 17 pounds of drugs off streets
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ST. IGNATIUS — Prescription drug take-backs held Oct. 29 in St. Ignatius and Pablo brought in 17 pounds of drugs. In the three years the event has existed, this is the first time any prescription drugs have been dropped off.
“It went really, really well,” tribal health educator Margene Asay said. “That’s 17 pounds of drugs that are not out there.”
For Asay and others, keeping drugs from getting into children’s hands is a major motivation.
In 2009, 16 million Americans age 12 and older had taken a prescription pain reliever, tranquilizer, stimulant or sedative for nonmedical purposes at least once in the year prior to being surveyed, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. A study by the NIDA also showed that 2.7 percent of eighth-graders, 7.7 percent of 10th-graders and 8 percent of 12th-graders had abused Vicodin. According to the same study, 2.1 percent of eighth-graders, 4.6 percent of 10th-graders and 5.1 percent of 12th-graders had abused OxyContin.
“My priority is the kids,” Asay said. “If (drugs) are out kids could get them and swallow them accidentally or not. We need to get them out of the reach of the kids.”
Detective Steve Trollope of the Missoula Police Department collected the drugs that were turned in, and they were later sent to Salt Lake City to be destroyed. People are told not to flush excess medication down the toilet, because it can affect the water supply.
“The program is a needed tool to get prescription drugs off the streets,” Trollope said, adding that he attributed the drug take-back success to outstanding advertising of the event.
The detective mentioned that Montana children rank the third highest in prescription drug abuse in the country and more than half of them say these types of drugs are easier to get than street drugs.
“The numbers are impressive,” he said. “I think people are starting to understand the dangers of having unused prescription drugs. They are taking a proactive stand.”
“I do consider prescription drug abuse the biggest problem in the U.S.,” said Ken Cairns, M.D. “It’s in every community and it’s in this valley.”
He said the drug take-back is one strategy to combat prescription drug misuse but said other tactics must be used, such as applying cautious and responsible opioid prescribing practices.
Cairns currently works part-time for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ behavioral health and addiction treatment department, covers weekends at the Pathways addiction clinic in Kalispell and works at an addiction clinic in Missoula.
“In my field of work I hear stories of ‘I was doing ok until I got a Lortab or a Vicodin and I liked it. I never saw it coming,’” he recalled. “It escalates into the most agonizing stories.”
People who get high off the prescription drugs soon build up resistance, Cairns explained.
“You get high for awhile but then it takes awhile,” he said.
The NIDA states that long-term use of opioids or central nervous depressants can lead to physical dependence and addiction. When taken often or in high doses, opioids can cause anxiety, paranoia, dangerously high body temperatures, irregular heartbeat or seizures.
Findings show that more than 40 Americans a day die from prescription drug overdoses. That totals around 15,000 deaths a year.
“There’s no community that’s not affected,” Cairns said.
