SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the keep-away-from-prank-loving-children dept.
Walmart offers way to turn leftover opioids into useless gel
Walmart is helping customers get rid of leftover opioids by giving them packets that turn the addictive painkillers into a useless gel. The retail giant announced Wednesday that it will provide the packets free with opioid prescriptions filled at its 4,700 U.S. pharmacies.
The small packets, made by DisposeRX, contain a powder that is poured into prescription bottles. When mixed with warm water, the powder turns the pills into a biodegradable gel that can be thrown in the trash. It works on other prescription drugs and for pills, tablets, capsules, liquids or patches, according to DisposeRx.
[...] Some drugstore chains like CVS and Walgreens also collect unused medications at many of their stores. People can also take leftovers to hospital pharmacies or police stations. Unused prescriptions also can be thrown in the trash. But the Food and Drug Administration recommends mixing them first with something unpalatable like kitty litter or used coffee grounds and sealing the mixture in a plastic bag.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday January 19 2018, @05:58AM (11 children)
Never taken them but my impression is one of these:
A) Use em up and be done with em
B) Don't use em up, but they work really well so save the rest Just In Case
C) You're an addict
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @06:14AM (5 children)
A town was terrorized last week by the appearance of a monster. Numerous witnesses report going about their day in an ordinary fashion. Their normal days were interrupted when they saw a man beating and raping a woman on the sidewalk. That was perfectly normal, but what happened next was beyond their expectations. "The man on top of the woman began screaming for help," one witness reported. He continued, "He kept shouting 'Monster, monster! Help!' Things like that. It was quite shocking." Eventually, a law enforcement officer saw what was happening and gasped. The officer open fired and shot the woman countless times until motion became silence. "I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a genuine monster! That woman was a tadpole sucker!" the officer said. However, the terror did not end there; the woman's corpse continued polluting everything around it, so the area had to be cluster bombed to get rid of the source of the poison. As for the rapist - who was the largest victim here - mental health experts say that he sustained crippling mental damage from the experience and will likely be the same again. This leaves many wondering: Will men's rights ever be properly respected?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @07:10AM (3 children)
Truly some of the best MRA fiction I have ever read. And that says a lot.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Unixnut on Friday January 19 2018, @09:49AM (2 children)
Indeed, I have to say one thing about the Trolls on SN, they are actually imaginative, and can write properly. Like, the troll equivalent of the intellectual class, or elite. Trollectuals?
"SoylentNews, where even the Trolls are classy"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @07:01PM (1 child)
I know you're being funny, but classy? I haven't seen many posts I would consider high class, quite the opposite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @08:12PM
And, he seems to have missed the sarcasm. Or perhaps doubled-down: the "best MRA fiction" would be category not unlike "the best shit sandwich". Class just don't enter into it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @05:04PM
Ah, you're a feminist. It makes sense now.
Only in the mind of a feminist can demanding things such as "innocent until proven guilty" and the right of bodily integrity constitute rape.
But that should be the take-away of everybody assigned the male gender at birth. Demanding basic human rights is the equivalent of rape to feminists. Feminism has been doing a lot of work lately to prove that it is a hate movement.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Friday January 19 2018, @06:21AM (3 children)
Definitely B. It shouldn't be necessary, but in a world where the dentist can see you a week from Tuesday and the ER doesn't mind leaving you howling in pain for 8 hours in the waiting area as long as you're at least semi-conscious and not spurting arterial blood, it's good insurance.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2018, @08:34AM (1 child)
Same here. Dentist. Extractions and root canal.
I have great respect for this chemical. It works great, but at a price.
On me, it messes up the flora and fauna of my GI tract. Things stop working. Constipation. And really foul smelling crap.
So, I took the absolute minimal amount I could. Maybe used half of my allotment.
Kept the rest of em in the back of the cabinet, just in case.
Five years later, I pull something in my back one morning, simply trying to get my underwear on. Really painful, but I could detect no real problem - nothing is grinding or seems broke. Seemed more like a muscle tear than anything else. From misalignment of my foot and the hole it was intended to go into. Couldn't see running up a medical tab so a doctor could tell me what I had already surmised. However, had I thown those pills away, I may have had a forced visit just to get authorization to get some more pills. It took three of 'em to back off the pain to let me do things like get dressed, prepare my food and take a crap. I still have maybe 7 or eight left.
They have been there in the back of the cabinet for at least three more years since that round of lower back pain from that failed underwear incident.
That "feel good, I can now dump my pills" could have cost me a thousand dollars in doctor/hospital fees and possibly weeks of time before I got that little piece of paper that the pharmacist needs to dispense. More likely, it would have caused me to visit a person, known to me to be a user, to go to his source to buy me some pills. And I would have had no idea where they came from.
The money, very likely, would have gone for purchase of guns to protect the dealer from other dealers, or policemen.
If you know you will use them responsibly, I also say "keep them". Its free insurance against something similar to what I experienced. Something really painful can happen at any time, and that is no time to try to "work within the system" to address the problem.
Ideally, I would like to toss them, knowing I could go at any time to a 24-hour pharmacy and get some fresh pills - but things don't work that way. Just because some of us abuse them, and all of us have to endure restrictions to hinder the few that screw everything up for the rest of us.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Friday January 19 2018, @05:31PM
The sad part is that those who would abuse them still find plenty to abuse and often have an even worse problem with it since they tend to get stuff of random quality and strength. I'm not sure the restrictive laws are actually helping anybody but the DEA.
For example, Fentanyl has become popular since it's easy to move a lot of doses in easily concealed compact form, but it's way too strong to trust some guy in his living room to cut properly. It's only popular because it's easy to hide. Without the crazy drug laws, they'd stick to the much safer heroin. Hardly ideal, but there's be less ODs.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday January 19 2018, @04:24PM
Similar here. Doing a lot of outdoors, including solo. Any injury and one is dead without a serious painkiller.
Almost never use the stuff though.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Friday January 19 2018, @09:26PM
You forgot D) sell them to an addict at an absurd rate