kikipeepers asked
It's time to pooper-scoop your leftover medicine. Mixing cough syrup, Vicodin or Lipitor with cat litter is the new advice on getting rid of unused medications. Preferably used cat litter. It's a compromise, better for the environment than flushing — and one that renders dangerous medicines too yucky to try if children, pets or drug abusers stumble through the trash. A government experiment is about to send that advice straight to patients who use potent painkillers, sleeping pills and other controlled substances. Why? Prescription drug abuse is on the rise, and research suggests more than half of people who misuse those drugs get them for free from a friend or relative. In other words, having leftovers in the medicine cabinet is a risky idea. So 6,300 pharmacies around the country have signed up for a pilot project where when patients fill prescriptions for a list of abuse-prone medicines, from Ambien to Vicodin, the pharmacist also will hand over a flyer urging them to take the cat-litter step if they don't wind up using all their pills.
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