WI: Coalitions in Action: Wisconsin Tribal Communities Band Together to Reduce Rx Abuse

Coalitions in Action: Wisconsin Tribal Communities Band Together to Reduce Rx Abuse

Oct 27, 2011

Coalitions across the country have another opportunity to contribute to the fight against prescription drug abuse by participating in the Drug Enforcement Administration’s third National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day Saturday. 

CADCA members in Wisconsin say by participating in a take-back event and celebrating National Medicine Abuse Awareness Month, Red Ribbon Week, and the upcoming American Medicine Chest Challenge, they decrease the risk of prescription drug diversion and abuse, while increasing the awareness of Rx abuse. 

The coalition has expanded its efforts from alcohol use and abuse to prescription drug abuse in the past year because youth reported obtaining the medications from a friend or a relative’s home. 

Prescription drugs that languish in home medicine cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse, creating a public health crisis. The rate of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. today is at an alarmingly high level—two-and-a-half times more people currently abuse prescription drugs than the number of those using cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, and inhalants combined, according to the recently released 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). The same study shows that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet. 

“Rx drug abuse really seems to be on the rise affecting the Native American communities in our state,” said Jeremy McClain, Program Director, Positive Alternatives Coalition, Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council in Lac Du Flambeau, Wis. The Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council, a consortium of 11 federally-recognized Indian tribes in Wisconsin, each representing McClain’s executive board, has more prescription drug social norms to change. 

“We have some major hurdles,” McClain, a member of the Bad River Band of Ojibwe, said, adding that many people believe that if it’s prescribed by a doctor, it’s OK. Many also tend to share their medications with friends and family. 

By hosting drop-off sites and Take-Back events, the coalition will continue to appeal to adults, especially the elderly, to protect their medications from youth and that proper disposal doesn’t destroy natural resources, correlating to its traditional beliefs of environmentalism. 

As a result of this new initiative, their coalition was able to organize and implement three local Rx collection sites within their county: at a senior center, the police department and on their Lac Du Flambeau Indian Reservation. These local efforts led to the development and construction of permanent Rx drop off locations at local pharmacies and two new locations, the police department and the Lac du Flambeau Pharmacy, local media attention, and parent network dinners to highlight medicine abuse and misuse on the reservation. 

McClain’s coalition’s data revealed that the perception of harm to “self,” “parental disapproval,” and the perception of risk, in general, has increased. 

Americans participating in the DEA’s two previous National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day events turned in more than 309 tons of pills at more than 5,300 sites—1,382 pounds can be attributed to what McClain’s coalition of coalitions, the North Woods Coalition, collected just at last April’s events. 

Coalitions interested in hosting a collection site or collaborating at one can contact their local DEA representative or visit http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_disposal/takeback/index.html for more information.