Virginia acquires 80,000 drug disposal kits available to all citizens

On November 10, Attorney General Mark Herring announced that he has secured the donation of 80,000 drug deactivation kits to help Virginians with excess or unused prescription opioids safely dispose of those drugs.

The kits will be available at dozens of locations throughout the Commonwealth, including Virginia Department of Health Clinics, Community Service Boards, and law enforcement, healthcare, and nonprofit agencies. The list of distribution sites is listed below, as well as an interactive map of sites, and Virginians are encouraged to call before going to pick up a kit to confirm availability.

"Disposing of unused and unneeded prescriptions is an important part of fighting the opioid crisis that so often starts in the medicine cabinet with abuse or misuse of otherwise legally prescribed painkillers," said Attorney General Herring. "These kits are going to make it easy for Virginians to safely and quickly dispose of excess prescriptions before they can be abused, misused, or accidentally ingested. I'm really glad we were able to make these so widely available through our partnership with VDH and other community partners around the Commonwealth."

All kits are available at no charge to Virginians or the Commonwealth. Approximately 50,000 kits are being distributed in partnership with the Virginia Department of Health, while an additional 30,000 are being distributed through local hospitals, law enforcement agencies, pharmacies, and nonprofits that applied to distribute kits.

There is a strong link between misuse of prescription opioids, opioid addiction, and even later use of heroin once prescriptions become too expensive or are no longer accessible. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse:

• Half of young people who used heroin got started by abusing prescription opioids.

• One in fifteen individuals who misuse prescription opioid painkillers will try heroin within 10 years.

• The number of opioid prescriptions has nearly tripled over the last 25 years, and the United States now accounts for nearly 100 percent of the world's hydrocodone prescriptions and 81 percent for oxycodone.

• The number of Americans abusing heroin nearly doubled from 2007 to 2012, with nearly 700,000 now abusing heroin.

In Virginia, abuse and overdose deaths continue to rise:

• Prescription opioid overdose deaths have risen 44 percent between 2007 and 2015, from 399 deaths to 576.

• Heroin overdose deaths have risen more than 600 percent between 2010 and 2015, from 48 to 342.

• Fentanyl deaths have risen 367 percent from 2007 to 2015, from 48 to 224.

• More than 500 people went to a Virginia emergency room from a heroin overdose in the first four months of 2016, a 250% increase over 2015.

Kits are available at the following locations throughout the Commonwealth, and Virginians are encouraged to contact the distribution partner to ensure kits are still available: