Prescription Drugs Present New Abuse Dangers

Pills that you keep in your own bathroom medicine cabinet could kill someone in your family.

The abuse of prescription drugs has exploded as a national problem within the past decade. In York County, drug agents say drugs like Xanax, oxycodone, morphine and others are now easily found without a prescription, often by children.

"Oxycontin is killing kids. The marijuana is not," said Marvin Brown, who heads York County’s multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement unit.

He sees prescription and over-the-counter pills as often as crack and marijuana now, and often seizes thousands at a time. Often they're used in dangerous combinations with illegal street drugs.

"With marijuana we find a lot of Xanaxes, and with heroin we find Oxycontin, which is a painkiller."

On Tuesday, police along with drug abuse agencies kicked off a new effort known as "Operation Medicine Drop." The goal is to allow people to dump their old, unused or expired meds without questions this Saturday, Dec. 12.

Police officers will be at area Bi-Lo stores from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. to collect the pills and incinerate them.

Jane Alleva, with Keystone Substance Abuse Services in Rock Hill, said children are popping these pills at parties without even knowing what they're swallowing.

In many cases, young people attend so-called "Skittles parties" where there's a bowl full of pills on a table. They could be painkillers, stimulants, cancer medication, high blood pressure pills or anything. The party goers don't know, and don't care. They just keep popping pills until they get high.

Most of the pills, Alleva says, come right from the family bathroom.

"I’m talking about kids who easily find medication in the medicine cabinet. They don't buy them from drug dealers on the street, all they have to do is go into their bathroom," she said.

And it's not just children who are risking their lives and becoming addicts.

In just the last week, two Walgreens pharmacies were robbed for drugs, one in Rock Hill and another in Lancaster County. In both cases, the suspect was an older man, who left with bottles of painkillers.

Rock Hill police have handled 73 prescription drug-related cases so far in 2009, and arrested 45 people for having the drugs without a prescription.

In fact, those who counsel drug addicts say prescription drug abuse has outpaced all but marijuana in the last decade.

Brown told Eyewitness News he wants the courts to do more to punish people caught with prescription drugs that aren't theirs.

"In court, these pills are looked at as not so serious, but they are," he said. "The sentences given out for pills are much lighter than what's given out for crack and cocaine."

If you want to drop off your old meds, you can do so in York County even if you don't live there. Police will not be taking down personal information, and the bottles you turn in will be bagged and destroyed so no one else will see the labels.

Those locations for Saturday’s medicine drop are Bi-Lo stores at 2186 Cherry Road in Rock Hill and 1329 W. Highway 160 in Fort Mill, 717 E. Liberty Street in York and 158 Highway 274 in Lake Wylie. The People's Pharmacy in Clover at 134 S. Main St. is also participating.