The Life Cycle of a Prescription Drug Vlog
Below is the transcript to The Life Cycle of a Prescription Drug Vlog:
Hi, my name is Annika Stanley-Smith, and I’m the Director of Substance Misuse Prevention for the Capital Area Public Health Network. Today I’m going to be talking about the life cycle of a prescription.
Prescriptions can be a critical part of our health and wellness. But there are some important steps to take to make sure that we’re not putting ourselves or others at risk when taking a prescription. The first step is to make sure that you’re following the directions of how the prescription was prescribed. Only taking as much as prescribed, when prescribed, with food, with water, etcetera. Make sure you follow those directions.
The second step is making sure that we don’t share those prescriptions. Those were prescribed to you by a doctor, and it’s important that no one else takes those prescriptions – you may not know what other prescriptions they are on, they might not have the same condition you have, so it’s important that you don’t share them.
Another important step of prescription drug safety is safe storage. Safe storage is another important step of prescription drug safety. Making sure that you put prescription drugs in a place that is not easily accessible. You can lock them in a lockable box or bag similar to this, or put them up in a high place that is not easy to reach. Make sure you have a general idea of how many prescriptions you’re taking and how many pills you’re taking at once. That way you can easily track if prescriptions go missing.
The next step in the life cycle of a prescription is, you’ve finished with it, you don’t need that prescription any longer, you’ve taken all you need to take, but you have some left over. It’s important that we safely dispose of unused prescription medications. The ways not to do that are through your trash or by flushing them down the toilet. When we throw away prescription drugs, they end up in a landfill, and then they end up in our water systems. And when they’re in our water systems, they affect our ecosystem. They can be very harmful to frogs and fish and all creatures that survive off of that ecosystem. And they can even impact the health and wellness of humans who live off that water system. So making sure that we safely dispose of prescription drugs is critically important when we’re finished with them.
One method of safely disposing of unused prescription medication is by dropping them off at your local participating police department during the DEA Take Back Day. You can take any unused prescription medications and even vaping devices to your local participating police department and they will be safely destroyed.
Small acts of prevention like this can lead to big impacts in the health and wellness of our communities. I hope you’ll join me in participating in the DEA Take Back Day and thank you for following along in the life cycle of a prescription drug.
To learn how you can safely dispose of your unused prescription medications, visit https://bit.ly/3kvLtf8 to find a secure dropbox near you.
Annika Stanley-Smith is a graduate of Southern New Hampshire University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology. Anni works as the Director of Substance Misuse Prevention for the Capital Area Public Health Network. She has been an employee of Granite United Way since 2011. She has experience in volunteer management, event planning, networking, public speaking and action planning. Anni received her Certified Prevention Specialist (CPS) credential in May 2016.