UCF to host drug take back

With an increasing prescription drug epidemic nationwide, UCF is taking a stand and hosting the first-ever UCF Drug Take Back event.

Students, staff, faculty and members of the general community are invited to drop off their expired or unwanted prescription or over-the-counter medication with no questions asked.

The event is a partnership between UCF Health Services and UCF Police and will take place in the John T. Washington Center Oct. 27 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

"The goal of the event is to increase awareness of the proper way to dispose of these medications and educate people that by doing so it protects the environment as well as the people who may be susceptible to getting ahold of these drugs for the wrong reasons," Megan Pabian, UCF Health Services marketing coordinator, said.

As an increasing number of people have asked Pabian what to do with their unwanted medication, she knew it was a growing concern and that she had to do something about it.

"We saw a need for the event and a way to meet that need," Pabian said. "We made a move to make it happen and partnered with UCF PD to secure the drugs at the event to make it a safe environment to dispose of medications."

Although the UCF community has been wondering what to do with unwanted medications, there is also an overwhelming increase of Americans abusing prescription and OTC drugs.

According to National Family Partnerships' Lock Your Meds campaign, seven million Americans abuse prescription drugs, which is more than the number of people abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, ecstasy and inhalants combined; the campaign also found that 70 percent of people 12 and older who use prescription drugs get them from family or friends.

"Prescription drug abuse has two contributing parts: teens who want to experiment and people who are really addicted and who will doctor-hop just to get high," Pabian said. "We are mostly dealing with the experimental aspect, but we also know there are a lot of people out there who actively seek out these drugs, especially by dumpster diving or through pill mills."

For the first time in Florida's war on prescription drug abuse, investigators are pursuing pill mills as organized crime enterprises and corrupt doctors as murderers.

After a three-year investigation, federal authorities announced the detail of Operation Oxy Alley, a sweeping indictment charging 32 people for their involvement in South Florida-based pill mills that doled out 20 million oxycodone pills and profited more than $40 million from illegal sales of controlled substances.

Pill mill cases are less common in Orange County, which currently only deals with a small handful of cases.

According to the state's annual Medical Examiners Commission, deaths caused by prescription drugs in 2010 increased by 8 percent from the previous year. Oxycodone alone was the cause of 2,710 deaths in 2010, a 28-percent increase since 2009, and about 85 percent of all oxycodone sold comes from Florida.

Prescription drug use is hard to document, but Dr. Michael Deichen, director and physician of UCF Health Services, said it is less of a problem on campus as it is in Central Florida in general.

"At UCF Health Services, we generally do not prescribe the medications that people typically look for, for those kind of purposes, but I do feel this event is important because many people do not know how to properly dispose of these kinds of medications and can often hurt the environment or hurt someone who uses them experimentally, especially if the medications happened to be expired," Deichen said. "This event will be good for the environment and good for people."

Senior elementary education major Bianca Velazquez, who works in the Health Services Pharmacy department, believes this event is extremely important to the UCF community.

"It is important to know how to properly dispose of medications so they do not get into our water, and it is also important to keep an eye on your medicine cabinet and dispose of all of your medications properly so they do not get in the hands of someone who could harm themselves," Velazquez said.

In the typical American medicine cabinet, there can be a surplus amount of expired or unwanted medications. By properly getting rid of these medications, you can protect yourself and others from mistakenly taking expired medication or from abusing prescription drugs.

There is an article on the Health Services website, National Family Partnerships' website and the FDA website on how to properly dispose of OTC and prescription drugs that are expired or not in use.

If you know of someone in danger of prescription drug abuse, you can visit Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services website for listing of treatment centers in your area or call 1-800-662-HELP.