Walmart Offers Product To Destroy Leftover Opioids, But Critics Say It’s Unnecessary
Walmart is the latest national company joining in the fight to try to help curb America’s harrowing opioid epidemic, which now kills more people than breast cancer.
On Wednesday the chain rolled out a pharmacy product it says provides a safe way to get rid of extra prescription opioid drugs. It’s called DisposeRx and when mixed with warm water it turns any form of opioid drug — including powders, pills, tablets, capsules, liquids or patches — into a biodegradable gel that can’t be separated or converted back into a usable drug.
Walmart touted it as the first of its kind in a statement, and said the ingredients are FDA approved.
“The health and safety of our patients is a critical priority; that’s why we’re taking an active role in fighting our nation’s opioid issue – an issue that has affected so many families and communities across America,” Marybeth Hays, executive vice president of Consumables and Health and Wellness at Walmart U.S., said in the statement.
In 2016 more than 42,000 Americans died of an opioid overdose — including prescription opioids, heroin and fentanyl. That is more than any year on record and 40 percent of all overdose deaths involved a prescription.
Walmart explained patients filling new opioid prescriptions at any of its 4,700 pharmacies will receive a free DisposeRx packet starting immediately, while existing customers can ask for one at any time. Patients with chronic pain prescriptions will be offered packets every six months.
Republican Sen. John Boozman from Arkansas praised Walmart for helping “to keep unused prescription drugs out of the wrong hands.”
“About one-third of medications sold go unused. Too often, these dangerous narcotics remain unsecured where children, teens or visitors may have access,” he said in the statement Walmart released.
A CDC study found Arkansas’ prescription drugs are so ubiquitous there are enough pills on the black market that every single citizen — nearly 3 million in the state — could have a full bottle, reported Talk Business & Politics.
Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University, agrees that leftover pills do contribute to the spread of addiction but he says products like DisposeRx are unnecessary because the CDC already encourages anyone who’s at the end of a prescription opioid treatment to “flush them down the toilet.” No special ingredients necessary.
“The problem is the general public just doesn’t know that,” he said.
“Think about it,” he continued, “every time someone taking an opioid medication urinates or defecates, it gets into the water supply. So that’s not the real problem.”
Kolodny is also conducting a long-term study on the impact of numerous legislative and private company-led efforts to stem the epidemic. His conclusion on Walmart’s DisposeRx? “It’s nice that they’re trying but it will have little impact.”
The root of the explosion in the addiction crisis, he says, is rampant over-prescribing by doctors and dentists. Through his research, which is ongoing, Kolodny has found that policies limiting prescriptions are most effective, like the one imposed by CVS. In September the drug-store chain began limiting opioid painkillers to seven-day supplies for new patients.
But even that falls short of what is required, Kolodny said.
A better strategy is the one undertaken by the Vermont Department of Health. New rules established in April limit the quantity of a “morphine milligram equivalent” in prescriptions. They lay out specific dosages of drugs containing oxycodone, hydrocodone and acetaminophen-oxycodone (found in Percocet) that doctors should prescribe.
Kaiser Health News reported 22 states either adopted or toughened their prescription size limits in 2016.
Filed under: General Problems
Walmart will find a way to make money on anything. If any kind of opioid could be sold as otc they would be first to stock shelves.
Please explain how they are going to MAKE MONEY on something that they are GIVING AWAY FREE ?
It is not free. They are just not charging for it – they will fold the cost of it into the cost of the opioid prescription.
Since 80%-90% of all prescriptions are paid for – and the price determined by – PBM/insurance company… there is very little wiggle room to pass the cost along. and their contract with the PBM mandates that they not charge the pt more than what the PBM states is owed by the pt
Wow, you’d think he’d be happy however they are destroyed? We know the problem hasn’t been over prescribing for a long time, and that many abusers started by stealing pills. Some county water supply companies tell people NOT to flush meds? Prescribing here in WA state has gone down 44 percent since 2008, though ODs/deaths still sky rocketing. When is this fraud and money grabber going to speak the truth? Please use hashtag #KolodnyKills
More than Breast Cancer…hmm Would that be annually and is that 1st instance with B/C and what type(s) and staging, node & blood involvement? Or is this figure all Breast Cancer deaths….to include those cases in which the ‘cells’ were reactivated and even new sites/ metastasized. What about deaths that weren’t directly cause/affect from B/C, however were from the treatment of the disease or Mets.? Recourance after ask called ‘remission’ / reemergence or new primary?
How long has this been studied….Breast Cancer battle is most always a marathon…not a sprint and to quantify such numbers need to be clarified…it’s not just a simple statement a vs b ….unless you are a current or previous cancer patient or does this include all survivorship that becomes active again or deaths from actual treatments….not as clear cut as numbers that they wish to just throw around. Just like under reported suicides and strokes extra from now extended consistently High BP rates due to chronic untreated pain or what has been the case for so many for so long- undertreated pain
I can but hope that karma bites Kolodny and his ilk very hard!! Hope for effective pain control is a thing of the past
I hate it when u can’t comment to expose the truth on those sites…Like all the data there quoting as a lie,,,,,NPR has always been opiatephobs,,,,
Again another industry using kolodyns lie of the false addiction/deaths b.s. to ,”Look Good,”,,,,,,,MARY
Exactly….it’s like the have ‘the number’ and they work in reverse, in order to make their narrative fit the within the numbers which are far from conclusive in a simple match race…..