Some clinics/doctor's offices have an incinerator for destroying pills.

These drugs are so damned much money, I understand they can't reissue them because of fears of contamination, but there's several hundred dollars worth of pills in that suitcase. And that's aside from me looking at those bottles of restricted narcotics and thinking "You'd only run into an undercover cop if you tried."

"Doc, he's got a stash of pain pills and such that rivals Breaking Bad. Where do I get rid of them?"

When Stephen passed I had tons of medications including plenty of pain pills. I gave them to a person I knew that worked with AIDS patients in a hospice type setting. It was a wink wink kind of deal where he couldn't say so, but he was totally going to give them to people that could not afford them.

eta: My vet did the same thing. Took back the medications and was going to give them to people that couldn't afford them.

I don't think I know anyone like that, darn it.

Apparently it is pretty much impossible for individuals to donate unused medications in this country. Hospitals and such can do so. Unless someone here knows someone that could use them properly the best solution is likely to give them to the pharmacy for disposal.

We all know there a plenty of people that could use them! It sucks that there is no method to legally donate.

The street value of the drugs I had when my mom died - crazy. Especially cause we had done in home hospice for a bit, we had HUGE bottles of morphine and methadone. My mom's friend took care of getting rid of them and I'm not quite sure what she did.

I do remember one place insisting they had to talk with her to cancel her account. Even when I asked if they were going to stage a seance, she was very insistant. Clueless. I chose to laugh instead of cry.

The nurse flushed all the morphine when my mom died, but we still had mounds of anti-nausea, lidocaine patches, etc. Never did find a good solution.

Gosh, I've got three boxes of lidocaine patches. Multiple bottles of oxys, hell, we've got nicknames for the pain pills--perkies, loras--he wasn't even bothering to fill the pain scrips because of the home supply.

The company brought over the plant-based sympathy thing. I'd mentioned I didn't want roses or mums. They brought foliage. Beautifully green, thick-leaved, probably expensive. I loathe house plants that are just thick-leaved green foliage. And it's alive and something I'm apparently supposed to tend and keep alive.

I guess I'll take it home and ask if anyone likes plants.

I have enough friends with chronic pain and anxiety issues that I just discreetly "rehomed" mom's meds stash. I've gotta say, finding her bottle of Xanax while dealing with the weird stress of helping dad go through all the things he didn't know about was very serendipitous timing.