Whether it’s the antibiotics prescription you never finished or that bottle of Excedrin from the Reagan administration, you think you know what to do with past-its-prime medication. Most likely, you keep it. Just in case.
Problem is, there are health and ecological dangers to that practice, not to mention the possibility of loved ones taking the drugs for themselves—a big issue in a country struggling with opioid addiction. Complicating matters further, government and medical groups have different views about the safety, efficacy, and disposal of expired meds.
“Each group has a different way they’ve approached it,” says Jennifer Adams, Pharm.D., Ed.D., a representative of American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy and community pharmacist in Idaho. “The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have different approaches. Even Fish and Wildlife has a different view from the environmental side.”
So, are expired medications hazardous? Do they still work? And when we’re done with our meds, how should we get rid of the leftovers?
Over-the-counter medications and prescription drugs come with a month and year stamped on the container. That’s the expiration date, and it’s usually one to five years after the drug was manufactured. It doesn’t necessarily mean the medicine goes bad at that point. “The technical meaning is when a medication has lost 10 percent or more of its efficacy or potency,” says Dr. Adams.
At 90 percent strength, many meds will work fairly well and have few health repercussions, meaning your October 2016-expired ibuprofen should be fine to take in November. However, as time goes by, drug potency continues to decline. This makes medication potentially dangerous if you take too much to compensate for the loss of effectiveness.
The bigger problem, though, is this: Past their expiration dates, certain drugs can cause serious health issues. Some antibiotics become toxic, for example, while medications like insulin and nitroglycerin lose their ability to regulate. Take insulin, which is exactly calibrated to control blood sugar: “Insulin, you need it to be 100 percent potent because it’s acting for the insulin you don’t have in your body,” says Dr. Adams, “and if your blood sugar gets too low, you can potentially die.” Similarly, nitroglycerin that’s slightly off can lead to heart attacks.
Since there are thousands of medications with countless, distinct expiration date instructions, pharmacists usually tell everyone to throw out old drugs. “If you wanted to call your pharmacy and ask about any med, they could give you specific advice says,” Dr. Adams, “but in general, to keep people safe, if it’s after the expiration date, it needs to be disposed of.”
Of course, if a medication is clearly beginning to deteriorate—if it’s crusting, molding, or giving off a foul odor, for example—it should be relegated to the trash bin without hesitation.
Getting rid of expired medications isn’t as easy as tossing them into your garbage can. For the safety of your family, your pets, and the environment, it’s best to jettison drugs in one of the following ways:
- Zip it, dissolve it, inactivate it, and trash it. A more thorough disposal process is necessary for other drugs. “Put everything in a Ziploc bag, put a little bit of water in, shake it up,” says Dr. Adams. “Add coffee grounds, kitty litter, a little bit of dirt to inactivate it.” Then, throw it away. This prevents animals from ingesting meds and keeps chemicals from leeching into the water supply.
- National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. Each year, the DEA designates a day for people nationwide to scrap their meds. This year, it’s Saturday, October 22, from 10am to 2pm. Look for a disposal site near you at the DEA’s website, here.
- Access your pharmacy. Both chain and independently owned pharmacies can assist you in ditching your expired medications. “The chain community pharmacies—they’ll give you envelopes to mail in to take-back centers and they’ll incinerate them,” says Dr. Adams. Other pharmacies will provide bins for you to drop off your bottles.
If you still have questions about medication disposal, it’s best to contact your pharmacist. They can answer questions about efficacy and safety, and further explain the methods of disposal at your service.
In the meantime, remember: You should throw out expired medications. When it comes to the health of you and your grandchildren, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
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