DEA Take Back Event

[September 29, 2010]

My time at MPhA seems to be flying by! Last Thursday I was able to attend the Legislative Commission on Health Care Access. This was an interesting meeting that focused on the balance between the federal and the state government. It was surprising to me to hear such a struggle to maintain independence from the federal government. During the session, there was an update on Obama’s health care reform, which had just gone into effect that day. New health insurance plans will contain the updated policies, but existing plans won’t change until they are renewed, most likely on January 1st.

The majority of my time last week was spent preparing for the DEA takeback event that happened on Saturday, September 25th. Luckily, there were enough pharmacist, student, and technician volunteers to help at every site. After finding volunteers for all of the sites, I was able to pass along the details I knew and distribute materials. Everything had been planned last minute with no time to spare, so there wasn’t much time for conversations between pharmacy, the DEA, waste management, and the law enforcement. There was no plan for how each site would run, since the DEA preferred to leave these details up to the individual counties. I was also nervous that the public wouldn’t attend the event since I hadn’t seen any advertisements. Luckily, everything worked out and the take back was a huge success!

On Saturday, Julie Johnson and I volunteered at the Clear Lake take back site. Clear Lake is a small town northwest of the twin cities, about an hour drive away. At the site, we were joined by a police officer, a waste disposal representative, and two DEA officers. As we were walking into the site, a car pulled up and the first members of the public had arrived! Julie and I sorted all of the drugs, separating the controls for the non-controlled. We also recorded every drug that we received, including an approximation of the quantity. If we were unsure of a medication, we used reference materials to identify it. We received medications from approximately 5 to 8 individuals, a law enforcement evidence room, a dispensing physician’s office, and three assisted living homes. We received a lot of medications and were busy during the entire event.

I think this event was extremely beneficial, allowing people to dispose of medications that they have been holding on to for many years. I am excited to see what legislative changes might occur that would make a take back event more feasible.  This week, I am focusing on compiling the data the sites collected and getting feedback from the other volunteers. I am interested to hear how things went at the different sites, since they were all run independently and had varying public attendance. Hopefully, the information that I collect will help us to improve and conduct an even more effective take back in the future.