Unused Drug Repositories

So, what are drug repositories? Apparently several states have created drug repositories which are places that people can donate their unused prescription drugs in order to give them out to those who cannot afford those drugs. I know that after my chemo treatments, I think I ended up with three different kinds of anti-nausea drugs because one or the other of them gave me weird side effects or because I no longer needed them. I think I ended up throwing out a whole month's supply of tamoxifen when I was diagnosed the second time because I no longer needed it.

Also, our local paper has recently published articles that relate to the amount of prescription drugs in our water supply. I think some people with unused drugs are advised to flush said drugs down the toilet. The article on drugs in our water supply is at: http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2008/03/11/news/community/7aaaloc02_water.txt

I cannot take credit for this idea. Jeanne Sather at The Assertive Cancer Patient (www.assertivepatient.com) wrote about this recently and I am finally wanting to do something about this, partly because various members of our local breast cancer support group seemed very interested in the topic last night. Rather than reinventing the wheel, Jeanne's posts on the matter are at the following website:

http://www.assertivepatient.com/recycle_drugs/index.html

I am going to contact colleagues on campus today and I've also contacted our support group to see how we can begin to get a drug repository here in Oregon. I figured we could write a letter to our local state representative, Sara Gelser, on the matter. And, I just thought that this might be something that local churches and social service agencies could involved with, too. Any other ideas would be appreciated!