Preventing Prescription Drug Abuse

Dave Schneider is the Executive Director of Northern Michigan Regional Entity which contracts with providers in 21 counties of Northern Michigan for prevention, drug detoxification and treatment services. One of the largest problems in the United States today is Prescription Drug Abuse which has now translated to Heroin abuse with the difficulty of obtaining prescription drugs. Programs have been instituted such as medication drop off sites where you can take older prescription drugs to be discarded at a safe site which will destroy them. There are also prevention programs which are contracted to provide prevention education. Another initiative is to get people to lock up their medications in a lock box so that people visiting the home cannot raid their medicine cabinets.

A key point is not to flush medication in the sink or toilet. A big problem is medication's showing up in our fresh water supplies.