USC Pharmacies and USC Student Health co-hosted a Drug Take Back Day today, an event allowing students and staff to leave any unused or expired prescriptions and other drugs. Students were able to go to any of three USC pharmacies in Los Angeles, including the one on the University Park Campus.
Event organizers highlighted that it was a no-questions-asked event, with pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter medications accepted, though non-capped syringes were not. Drug Take Back Day is a bi-annual event and will return in the spring.
“A lot of times, people feel some kind of way about dropping things off, thinking people are going to go through their bags. But for today, the time of the year, we just have a trash can out there. Put everything in, no questions asked,” said Kari Trotter Wall, the USC director of pharmacy. “We want to make sure that we dispose of them safely.”
Trotter Wall said the timing of the event was purposeful, noting that as students prepare to go back home for the holidays they might find unwanted or leftover drugs.
“It’s an opportunity when people do winter cleanup,” Trotter Wall said. “When they’re avoiding studying, they’re going to look at their stuff in their cabinets [and go] ‘Oh, I should get rid of this.’ It’s strategically placed right before the end of the semester break.”
And for those who are worried that anyone will go through their bag, Trotter Wall assured that would not be the case. In fact, all she does is tie the bag and put it in a box. The full box then gets burned by an outside company.
Reem Alharithi, the executive director of Team Awareness Combatting Overdose (TACO) and senior majoring in pharmacology and drug development, said Drug Take Back Day is an important form of harm reduction for college campuses.
“[Drug Take Back Day] is incredibly important, because any drug that makes its way into somebody else’s hands has a chance of having a lethal dose of fentanyl inside of it, because any drug that did not come from your provider, from your pharmacy, from your trusted physician, may have fentanyl in it,” Alharithi said.
Alharithi commended the university for hosting an event like this because it gave students a place to drop off drugs without facing any judgment or pressure.
“I just think that, in general, creating a climate of non-judgmental harm reduction is incredibly important, because it allows for students to engage in correct communication with their peers and with health authorities who may have helpful information for them,” Alharithi said.
TACO, which neither condemns nor encourages drug use, aims to create an environment where students feel comfortable asking questions about the substances they take so they can make informed decisions about what they put in their bodies.
“We give out subsidized harm reduction strips — essentially fentanyl test strips — nasal Naloxone, which is an agent that aids in opioid overdose reversal,” Alharithi said. “We are giving out these supplies to students via college chapters, and this is an excellent way for students to be aware of the risk of overdose, poly-substance overdose [and] fentanyl contamination that way they can stay safe.”
In a release for this event, Raffi Svadjian, executive director of community pharmacies and assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at USC Mann, said that part of the importance of this event is to make it easy and accessible for students to dispose of drugs.
“By hosting events like Drug Take Back Day, we can decrease the chances of unused medications leading to accidental poisoning, misuse and overdose, and may help save lives and protect the environment,” he said.
Trotter Wall emphasized the importance of getting rid of excess drugs and strongly discouraged sharing medication. She gave the example of two people presenting the same symptoms but requiring different medications. Only a doctor can make that determination.
“If you’re taking someone else’s medication, you have no idea whether you’re allergic to that, if there’s something in there, or maybe even if it’s not even right for the condition that you’re trying to treat,” Trotter Wall said. “It’s important to make sure that people are only taking what’s been prescribed for them… The whole point of this is to make sure that we try to minimize the sharing of medications that are just sitting in people’s cabinets.”