The American Medicine Chest Challenge

Lee County, KY: Lee County to participate in the American Medicine Chest Challenge

In a nationwide campaign to prevent prescription drug abuse, accidental poisonings and overdoses, a coalition of U.S. medical, drug and law enforcement agencies is calling upon consumers to routinely dispose of any expired and unused medications.

To raise awareness of the problem, which threatens children on a daily basis, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, the American College of Emergency Physicians, poison control centers and other alliance members are sponsoring an event on Nov. 13, 2010, called the “American Medicine Chest Challenge,” in which citizens eliminate their medicine cabinets of old prescription drugs and lock up the rest.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Department (LCSD), in association with The Concerned About Our Community Coalition, Frontier Health, and Planning District One, will participate in this year’s event and host the American Medicine Chest Challenge on Nov. 13, 2010 in Pennington Gap, Va. Residents wanting to participate in the event can go to Pennington Pharmacy between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

“This Challenge will raise awareness about the dangers of abusing prescription drugs and reduce the availability of potent drugs that lead kids down a path to addiction,” explained Angelo M. Valente, chief executive officer for the American Medicine Chest Challenge.

The Lee County event on Nov. 13 coincides with events in communities all across the country. This initiative will challenge Lee County residents to take the Five-Step American Medicine Chest Challenge:

• Take inventory of your prescription and over-the-counter medicine.

• Lock your medicine chest.

• Dispose of your unused, unwanted, and expired medicine in your home or at an American Medicine Chest Challenge Disposal site.

• Take your medicine(s) exactly as prescribed.

• Talk to your children about the dangers of prescription drug abuse.

“With the American Medicine Chest Challenge, we are calling on residents to see their medicine cabinets through new eyes — as an access point for potential misuse and abuse of over-the-counter and prescription medicine by young people,” said Valente.

The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows prescription medicines to be the most abused drugs by Americans, other than marijuana, and found that 70 percent of people who abuse prescription pain relievers say they got them from friends or relatives. A recent study on drug use by teens, by the Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA), found that one in nine children are abusing prescription pain relievers to get high.

Furthermore, many of the agencies involved in this campaign believe that regular clean-ups are crucial — because, according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), more than nine million people use prescription medication for non-medical uses. 

The NIDA also reports that seven of the top 11 drugs most commonly abused by high school seniors are either prescribed or bought over the counter.

The American Medicine Chest Challenge is a community-based, public health initiative, with law enforcement partnership, designed to raise awareness about the dangers of prescription drug abuse; and to provide a nationwide day of disposal — at a collection site or in the home — of unused, unwanted, and expired medicine.

The American Medicine Chest Challenge provides a unified national, statewide, and local focus to the issue of medicine abuse by children and teens. It is designed to generate unprecedented media attention to the issue of prescription and over-the-counter medicine abuse, and to challenge all Americans to take the Five-Step American Medicine Chest Challenge.

For more information, visit www.americanmedicinechestchallenge.com.

Adam Young is a staff writer for the Middlesboro Daily News. He can be contacted by e-mail at ayoung@heartlandpublications.com.

Read more: The Middlesboro Daily News - Lee County to participate in the American Medicine Chest Challenge