By Alex Brown
The Chronicle
Lewis County is poised to require drug companies to create a secure medicine return program, part of ongoing efforts to relieve the opioid epidemic that has swept through rural communities nationwide.
The ordinance will make Lewis County the seventh county in Washington to mandate a take-back program, ahead of a Legislature-passed initiative that will require such programs statewide by 2021.
“We think it’s a good way of getting drugs off the street,” said Commissioner Edna Fund. “It would help us address the opioid crisis.”
The measure was recommended by the Lewis County Opioid Task Force, and county commissioners are expected to pass it after a June 4 hearing. It requires drug manufacturers, producers and wholesalers who operate in the county to come up with a plan to ensure medicine can be returned safely. They will be responsible for establishing a drop box in each city in the county, setting up a mail-back program for unincorporated areas and hosting two events each year at which residents can return their drugs.
The proposal is a response to a new state law that will require take-back programs throughout Washington by the end of 2020. Counties that require their own programs by June 6 may operate them until 2021, then have them phased into the state mandate.
“What we decided was we should go ahead and implement it locally, because we can start getting that service available to our citizens before the state gets theirs started,” said Lewis County Public Health and Social Services Director Danette York.
The drug companies will be responsible for the cost of the return program, and they’ll be required to reimburse the county for the time it spends reviewing their plan. In the counties that already have a mandated return problem, companies have collaborated to put forth a single stewardship plan, using the third-party company Med-Project, LLC to handle compliance.
“It will cover itself,” York said. “There will be no additional cost to the county.”
The ordinance is meant to help people safely dispose of medicine without worrying about it falling into the hands of vulnerable people, such as drug seekers or children. Flushing drugs down the toilet or throwing them in a landfill is hazardous to the environment, York said.
If the commission passes the ordinance, the companies will have six months to submit their plan, which will then go to the county for review.
“It’s a really good ordinance,” Fund said. “It’s being funded by the drug companies. It’s not government doing it in terms of our (general) tax dollars.”
