Medication disposal - We all live downstream

(NaturalNews) Think about it. We really do all live downstream. Everything we dump down the sink, or flush down the toilet enters our water supply. When you fill that cup from the tap, how many pharmaceuticals do you think are in the water?

Medications are manufactured and sold as over the counter drugs, prescription drugs, and drugs developed for use only within a medical setting (such as vaccines, anesthesia, and drugs used for medical tests). Last year, 4,002,661,750 prescriptions were filled in the United States. Yes, that's more than 4 billion, 2 million prescriptions. And these were just the prescriptions. Approximately 2.9 billion trips were made to the pharmacy or another retail store to buy over the counter drugs. So all in all, Americans purchased close to 7 billion drugs last year, not counting the medications used in hospitals and clinics.

Unused and Expired Medications

In households, medications accumulate. In the typical medicine cabinet, you will find a combination of drugs:

• Medications currently prescribed and taken on a daily or on an as-needed basis.
• Medications purchased over-the-counter to be used if/when needed.
• Prescriptions partially used due to patient non-compliance or a change in prescription.
• And all too often - a full collection of outdated medications!

Prescription and over-the-counter medications are dangerous. If they are not kept under lock and key, the risk of medications being taken by others is great. Small children mimic their parents. Pre-teens and teens experiment. And children of the household are not the only possible culprits. Their friends will surely check out your medicine cabinet, if given the chance. In fact, it isn't that uncommon for adult visitors to steal a few pills here and there.

Obviously, it is best to dispose of unused and expired drugs, but all too often they are flushed down the toilet. Even if we didn't dispose of them improperly, drugs would end up in our water. Whatever drugs we take are excreted in urine and feces. This is true for both humans and animals. Now that conventional factory farming has become the standard, these overcrowded, inhumane meat and dairy factories are filled with animals that are injected and fed hormones to speed up growth, and they are fed antibiotics to survive their abysmal, unhealthy conditions. The waste runoff goes into groundwater and contaminates nearby creeks and rivers.

In addition, many medications come in the form of creams and salves. These are also washed down the drain along with all of the chemicals contained in our personal care products, our cleaning supplies, soaps, and laundry detergents.

All chemicals in the water are beginning to be a problem. Though all sorts of pharmaceuticals are found in our water (antibiotics, hormones, psychiatric drugs, heart medications, and more), the experts say the levels are not yet high enough to affect us, but they are high enough to affect aquatic life. This is a problem in itself and also a sure sign that the levels are rising and will soon become a health concern.

Some pharmaceutical companies allow nursing homes and hospitals to return meds. But what are we supposed to do?

Medication Disposal Programs

You can check with your county government or city government to ask if they have a medication disposal program in place. They may have an ongoing program or like our county, have a bi-annual medication disposal day. While a twice a year program does help keep meds out of the water, it does little to keep excess medications out of the home.

Check with you pharmacy to see what programs they may have in place. Walgreens and CVS both sell envelopes for $3.99 to ship non-controlled substances to a disposal facility where the unopened envelope is incinerated. And although they say they do not open the envelopes, you are not supposed to send in controlled substances.

Some argue that the cost, the lack of availability, and the emissions from incinerating medications make throwing meds into the trash a better option. They suggest emptying pills and mixing them with nasty garbage to discourage anyone from picking through garbage to retrieve pills.

If you have used antibiotics or have been vaccinated lately, check out How to Detox from Vaccines and How To Detoxify From Antibiotics and see this easy detox recipe. If you've decided to dispose of all of your unneeded medications, please do not flush them. Either find a program or empty them into the trash.

Sources:

http://www.phrma.org

http://kff.org

http://www.chpa.or

http://www.livescience.com

About the author:
Allene Edwards first became interested in alternative medicine and holistic treatment modalities when she successfully used diet therapy to manage her children�s ADHD. Later when she became chronically ill with an auto-immune disease that multiple doctors could not identify, much less cure, she successfully treated both the symptoms and the cause through naturopathic treatment and nutrition. She is the Managing Editor of Organic Lifestyle Magzine and a regular contributor.