Prescription Take Back Day: This Year with TimerCaps
The twice-annual event will feature a new incentive this October.
Saturday, Oct. 28, is the 14th National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, a day when people will be encouraged to drop off their unused prescription drugs at local collection points. This year many collection sites, including pharmacies, will be handing out TimerCaps as an incentive for people to bring in unwanted medications and as a way to help stem opioid abuse.
TimerCapTimerCaps are replacement caps for prescription pill bottles that have a digital read-out that automatically shows when the bottle was last opened. This type of a bottle closure can help meet many of the principles of keeping prescription drugs, especially opioids, safe, according to Phillip Sugarman, Director of Public Relations for TimerCap LLC. The caps can measure the time since the last dose and, because they can detect unwanted openings, they can deter theft of medication.
Free distribution of the TimerCaps is made possible by antidrug coalitions that purchase them throughout the year, Sugarman told Drug Topics. They buy them using funds that come from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) and other organizations that fight drug abuse and addiction.
“When TimerCaps are handed out and combined as an incentive for people to bring in unused medication from Drug Take-Back Day, the community benefits by lessening the unused medication in the household (52% of all abuse starts in the medicine cabinet) and providing additional safety for the medication still remaining in the home,” Sugarman said. Antidrug organizations can put their own logos or local information about drug abuse on the caps, he added.
National Prescription Take Back Days are conducted by the DEA twice a year, in April and October. In April, there were 5,498 collections sites, including many independent pharmacies and pharmacy chain locations. More than 450 tons of prescription medications were collected. All of the collection sites can be found here.
TimerCaps can also be purchased at many pharmacies or at TimerCap.com.
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