Tagged: prescription drugs

An abundance of prescription medication goes unused or is expired and is at risk of being abused.

This Saturday, April 27, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) holds the sixth annual National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 

David Sheff is a journalist and New York Times best-selling author. 

In 2008, he wrote a memoir, Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction, about how his family dealt with his son‘s methamphetamine addiction.

In a new book, Sheff argues that addicts suffer from an illness and are not simply victims of their own bad choices.  “We must acknowledge addiction is an illness…and not just bad behavior…because we punish bad behavior…we treat illness,” Sheff writes.

Two bills that would create a prescription drug monitoring program in Missouri received a hearing Thursday before a State Senate committee.

One of the bills, though, is structured in a way that’s designed to block the proposal from ever becoming reality.  Physician and State Senator Rob Schaaf (R, St. Joseph) is an outspoken critic of prescription drug monitoring.  He says it would violate citizens’ privacy rights.

“But I have agreed to carry (Senate Bill 146), given that it goes to a vote of the people, and that nothing will be construed to require a pharmacist or prescriber to obtain information about a patient from the database,” Schaaf told the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs and Health.