Campaign to relax US Rx drug recycling regs

An association of US state legislators and businesses has called on the federal government to grant individual states more leeway concerning the recycling or disposal of unused prescription drugs. The American Legislative Exchange Council is a conservative-dominated group which has members from both major US political parties.

According to a report published by the Chicago, Illinois-based think-tank, the Heartland Institute, "possibly billions of dollars' worth of unopened and unexpired drugs are thrown away," because prescriptions have changed or patients have died.

Christie Raniszewski Herrera, director of the ALEC's Health and human Services Task Force, told the Heartland Institute's Health Care News that "many states already have recycling and drug repositories where cancer patients can donate drugs, but federal regulations don't allow states to recycle usable narcotic-level pharmaceutical drugs." The purpose of the ALEC's resolution on federalism in recycling narcotics, originally discussed at the group's annual policy summit last December, is to allow states more authority on selecting disposal or recycling options. According to the American Health Care Association, up to 100,000 nursing home patients on Medicaid programs throughout the USA, could have had some of their drugs recycled.