PORT ANGELES — Those unused prescription drugs that are taking up space in medicine cabinets across the North Olympic Peninsula can now be dropped off at Jim’s Pharmacy in Port Angeles and Frick Rexall Drug Store in Sequim — anonymously and free of charge.
The pharmaceutical-waste take-back program is part of a joint effort among the two drug stores, the state Board of Pharmacy, the state Board of Health and the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
The two stores are the only independent drug stores that are participating in the state, and the Bartell’s Drugs chain of stores in Puget Sound is the only chain in the state that is taking part, Sheriff Bill Benedict said Tuesday.
Benedict said the purpose of program is twofold:
• Cut ballooning abuse of prescription drugs by both minors and adults.
• Keep prescription drugs out of the water supply.
Benedict deputized pharmacists at Frick’s, 609 Sequim Village Center, and Jim’s Pharmacy, 424 E. Second St. in Port Angeles, to allow them to process unused pharmaceuticals.
The program was developed by Benedict, Frick’s owner Cy Frick, Jim’s Pharmacy owner Jim Cammack and Olympic Medical Center pharmacist Jon Bernhoft.
The pharmaceutical waste can include vitamins, herbs, food supplements, veterinary medicines, antidepressants, liquid medication, ointments, syringes, hand sanitizer, sunscreen, dandruff shampoo and other medicated shampoos, according to the Sheriff’s Department’s 26-page Clallam Count Protocol for: End-User Collection of Waste Pharmaceuticals.
When people bring their unwanted medication to the pharmacy, the staff opens the slot on a collection box and has the person drop the medication into the box. Pharmacy staff do not touch medication containers.
The program can also be utilized by representatives from residential homes.
Sheriff’s Department staff collects the waste and has it destroyed at a Spokane incinerator along with illegal drugs that are transported there twice a year, Benedict said, making the program virtually cost-free to the public.
Jefferson County residents can take their unwanted pharmaceuticals to the participating pharmacies in Clallam County.
About $13,000 worth of drugs have been collected by Frick Drugs in the last month, Frick said Tuesday, pointing to three sealed boxes stacked on a chair at the Sheriff’s Office in Port Angeles.
The boxes included painkillers such as hyrocodone, a pain suppressant often marketed as Vicodin; medication such as Advair, used by asthmatics; and four boxes of injections of Neupogen, used for treating immuno-deficiency diseases and worth about $12,000.
Frick and Cammack are participating in the program as a public service, Frick said.
“This is a cooperative effort between business and government, hands across the table to the community.”
Prescription drugs that make their way into the water supply have “become the new form of hazardous waste,” said Dr. Tom Locke, public health officer for Clallam and Jefferson counties.
Benedict and Locke said discarded hormones have been known to “feminize” fish, giving them characteristics of both sexes.
“More and more people are using prescription medications, and that raises significant disposal issues,” Locke said, adding that it’s no longer advised to flush medications down the toilet.
“People were told to flush unused pills down the toilet for years and years,” he said. “That was the public message.”
Pharmaceuticals entering the water supply is “a nationwide problem,” Frick said.
He said pharmaceutical waste abounds in particular in Sequim.
A water test at SunLand in Sequim showed traces of 54 pharmaceutical chemicals, he said, though Locke said the last test he was aware of at SunLand was around 2000.
Locke said water in Clallam and Jefferson counties is not routinely tested for pharmaceuticals, but it’s not considered an “imminent threat.”
“It’s more one of those problems that if you don’t do something now, it could get to a point in Washington state where it was a problem.”
Pharmaceuticals in dangerous quantities tend to enter the water supplies of communities that draw water from rivers in industrialized areas, he said.
“The problem here is that what we are getting in he Dungeness River is affecting the fish population and eventually going out into the ocean,” Locke said.
“Here, it’s more of an environmental protection issue than it is an imminent human health issue.”
Still, some antibiotics, if flushed down a toilet, can neutralize bacteria in septic tanks, rendering the septic tanks useless, Locke said.
Jefferson County pharmacies may eventually participate, said Locke.
“I would regard this as kind of a pilot project,” he said.
“When you are doing a pilot project, you hope that it catches on. I would certainly welcome the development of similar programs elsewhere in the state, such as Jefferson County and Kitsap County, because the need is statewide.”
A joint state-federal effort by U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., earlier this year that would have allowed the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to establish the program failed.
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
