Disposing Of Unwanted Opioids Via The Mail Can Work—If Done Correctly

Coming up with a way to safely dispose of unneeded prescription medications is one important step we can take to reduce drug abuse. I have had loved ones pass away from cancer and I can attest firsthand that the disposal of their drugs after their passing was a vexing problem and one that none of us were in much of a mood to soberly contemplate.

The FDA recently put forth a proposal to provide pre-paid envelopes that would allow people to mail unused drugs to a facility that can easily and safely dispose of them.

While I do believe that such a service can help reduce the availability of opioids and other drugs prone to abuse, I am not sure that this step alone is sufficient. The problem is that increasing the amount of opioids transported via the mail could create some inadvertent problems.

For instance, in the last two years mail theft has risen dramatically: Robberies of mail carriers have tripled over the last three years, and mail theft in general increased 160 percent just in the last two years. In Washington D.C., where my family and I reside, it has been an especially acute problem, enough so that D.C. ‘s delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton recently put forth legislation intended to address it.

The apartment building where my family and I live—which is literally next door to the home of the Postmaster General—has had several incidences of mail theft over the last two years, and several of our fellow residents reported that they lost prescription drugs in these crimes.

Putting substantially more opioids in our nation’s mail system risks exacerbating this problem, as it would make mail theft more lucrative. Besides subjecting postal workers to an enhanced risk of physical danger, there is also the very real possibility that postal workers might take to stealing envelopes that they know contain opioids.

Some of the latter is already occurring. Last year, an OIG investigation of postal workers led to over 450 arrests and over 1,000 administrative actions related to mail theft. The narcotics program of the OIG produced 400 arrests as well.

There is also a fear that if these envelopes were to become recognizable by criminals (non-standardizing them might be complicated for the FDA) it could invite even more problems with the security of mail carriers and postal users as well.

One potential way to alleviate the risk in returning unused opiates via the mail would be to make it easier for people to deactivate their drugs before mailing them. Fortunately, a technology currently exists that can quickly and cheaply accomplish such a thing.

Deterra is a drug deactivation pouch that merely requires the user to place the drugs in them and add water. Developed via a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, it not only deactivates the drugs, but it is also environmentally friendly, as its usage in any context would prevent potentially lethal drugs from ending up leaching in landfills or contaminating our waterways even if they were not placed in the mail..

Providing these pouches with the return envelopes would, together, serve to reduce the potential threat of increased mail theft that the FDA’s policy engenders and to make the proposed rule more efficacious.

Solving our nation’s drug crisis will necessitate us doing many more things to reduce people’s ready access to these addictive and harmful drugs, and this constitutes just a single, small step in those efforts. But it would be an effective and inexpensive step, and the FDA is right in wanting to make it easier for families to cheaply and easily dispose of unwanted opiates.