# \*\*Legal\*\* disposition of usable prescription meds? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 5, 2005, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-disposition-of-usable-prescription-meds/324899 "2005-10-05T15:23:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-disposition-of-usable-prescription-meds/324899/1 "2005-10-05T15:23:16Z")
Let’s say you have a prescription medication that for some reason, you wound up not needing. It’s untouched and provably so. It’s not legal to hand such a thing off to a friend, for numerous good reasons. Are there charities that would take such a thing and find a place for it with one of their beneficiaries? or is the only recourse to discard a perfectly usable, expensive medication. It seems a shame to waste medication when conceivably someone could benefit from it. ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-disposition-of-usable-prescription-meds/324899/2 "2005-10-05T16:29:18Z")
IME animal shelters will accept medication for use with their shelter animals. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-disposition-of-usable-prescription-meds/324899/3 "2005-10-05T16:53:37Z")
I appreciate your good intentions but this sounds like too much of a legal morass to be worthwhile. I doubt that the drugs are “provably” untouched in the eyes of the law. The potential for liability suits boggles the mind. I would not personally want to be in the liability chain for prescription drugs. I found [this bill](http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_0751-0800/sb_798_cfa_20050502_154226_sen_comm.html) (haven’t gone through it top to bottom but seems to be California legislature material) which seems to propose something similar but requires the drugs to be under the control of a licensed pharmacist at all times. This would rule out donations from folks like yourself to whom drugs have already been dispensed. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-disposition-of-usable-prescription-meds/324899/4 "2005-10-05T17:55:55Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > I appreciate your good intentions but this sounds like too much of a legal morass to be worthwhile. I doubt that the drugs are “provably” untouched in the eyes of the law. The potential for liability suits boggles the mind. I would not personally want to be in the liability chain for prescription drugs. > > I found [this bill](http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_0751-0800/sb_798_cfa_20050502_154226_sen_comm.html) (haven’t gone through it top to bottom but seems to be California legislature material) which seems to propose something similar but requires the drugs to be under the control of a licensed pharmacist at all times. This would rule out donations from folks like yourself to whom drugs have already been dispensed. ::Sigh:: that’s what I was afraid of. Due to a doctor’s error (prescribed the wrong strength of an EpiPen for my kid) I’ve got something that for us is useless at best, dangerous at worst, but potentially life-saving for someone else. Thanks for the info. :mad: (not at you, at the doc’s office) ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-disposition-of-usable-prescription-meds/324899/5 "2005-10-05T19:46:10Z")
Nobody can legally redistribute the meds, whether they have a medical degree or are a pharmacist or what have you. There are organizations that will dispose of the medication, which is pretty much all you can do with it. These same organizations will take meds from families of the recently deceased. (IANAL, but I am a CPhT) -foxy ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-disposition-of-usable-prescription-meds/324899/6 "2005-10-06T06:30:10Z")
The AIDS HealthCare Foundation has operated a program for several years that collects unused AIDS medications (usually leftover when a patient dies) and redistributes them to other people who can use them. But since such redistribution is not allowed under USA laws, the medications are shipped to AIDS programs in various third-world countries. A recent ‘problem’ is a reduced supply of such leftover drugs, because AIDS patients are surviving much longer than before. See [http://www.aidshealth.org/newsroom/news/news\_archive/N072203a.htm](http://www.aidshealth.org/newsroom/news/news_archive/N072203a.htm) for more details about this. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-disposition-of-usable-prescription-meds/324899/7 "2005-10-06T10:15:30Z")
Take it back to your pharmacist. They’ll dispose of it for you, usually in the way that they dispose of out of date medications. ---
**Author:** ![Lips\_Obsession](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bbce88/32.png) [@Lips\_Obsession](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lips_Obsession)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-disposition-of-usable-prescription-meds/324899/8 "2005-10-06T12:48:20Z")
My parents’ doctor accepts back meds from his patients that they don’t need and then gives them as samples to underpriveledged patients who may not be able to afford a prescription themselves. He also gets quite a lot of samples from pharmaceutical company reps and gives them out as well. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-disposition-of-usable-prescription-meds/324899/9 "2005-10-06T13:38:28Z")
We once received a box of anti-rejection meds for a co-worker who had died three days earlier. I called the company, and they paid for us to ship them back.