kilgore Archives - Next Step Community Solutions

National Rx Drug Take Back Day: October 27, 2018 image

Think about your medicine cabinet at home for a minute. Do you have prescription drugs left over, maybe pushed toward the back of the cabinet and forgotten? A great way to get rid of them is coming up on Oct. 27 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the semi-annual Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Take Back. Your disposing of your prescription drugs at this event ensures they can’t fall into the wrong hands. The DEA Take Back is one of our prevention coalitions’ favorite activities. This event happens in communities all over East Texas and the rest of the country. Local law enforcement set up come-and-go collection sites where residents can drop off their leftover prescription medication, no questions asked. Residents ...

Faith In Action: Healing The Opioid Crisis Together image

Faith In Action Healing The Opioid Crisis Together Blog

If you’re a person of faith, how would you say you put that faith into action? One way you might put your faith into action is by disposing of your leftover prescription drugs. We are partnering with faith congregations across East Texas next week to spread the message that you can help your community by disposing of your leftover prescription drugs that would otherwise sit in your medicine cabinet. We are encouraging congregations to put the message in their bulletins, talk about it in their small group classes, post it in the halls of their facilities. A large percentage of people in East Texas are part of a community of faith, so this is a great way to spread the ...

What You Should Know If Your Child Is Prescribed Opioids image

With opioid overdoses being so frequent across the country (115 Americans die every day, according to the CDC) and in the news lately, parents may be concerned if their child receives an opioid prescription. Here’s some tips on how to ensure that your child gets the pain relief they need while avoiding opioid misuse and addiction. First, what is an opioid? There are several opioids that are on the market now. The most common are Hydrocodone (Zohydro); Hydrocodone with Acetaminophen (Vicodin); Oxycodone (Oxycontin, Roxicodone); Oxycodone + Acetaminophen (Percocet); Codeine, Morphine, Fentanyl, and Tylenol with codeine. These are distinct from opiates; opiates are drugs like morphine and heroin that are derived from the poppy plant, whereas opioids are synthetic, but they ...

Free Envelopes to Reduce Opioid Risk from The National Safety Council image

The National Safety Council is providing a new way for residents to dispose of their prescription drugs for free. At this website, you can order a special envelope to mail your leftover prescription drugs to a company that is approved by the Drug Enforcement Agency and specializes in destroying drugs. This is a great initiative that targets one of the main reasons our country is seeing so many people get addicted and overdose on prescription opioids: there are simply too many of these drugs sitting in medicine cabinets. “Research indicates people who take opioid painkillers can quickly develop a dependence on this class of drug,” according to the National Safety Council’s informational website. “Yet, 70% of doctors prescribe highly addictive ...

It’s National Prevention Week. Day Three’s Focus: Prescription & Opioid Drug Misuse image

Maybe you’ve heard about “The Opioid Crisis” in the news. It is one of the biggest public health epidemics of our time. According to the CDC, from 1999 to 2016, more than 630,000 people have died from a drug overdose. Around 66 percent of the more than 63,600 drug overdose deaths in 2016 involved an opioid. In 2016, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids (including prescription opioids and illegal opioids like heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl) was 5 times higher than in 1999, and on average, 115 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. Unfortunately, according to the Region 4 Needs Assessment for the 23 counties that make up this part of Texas, “compared to the state and ...

What is a prescription drug disposal pouch? image

It’s a simple idea: When there are fewer drugs in medicine cabinets, people are less likely to abuse them. That’s the thought behind prescription drug disposal tactics such as disposal boxes (click here for a list of locations in East Texas where you can dispose of your leftover prescription drugs, no questions asked) and prescription drug disposal pouches being distributed in communities in our 3 coalitions 13-county coverage area. The East Texas Substance Abuse Coalition covers Smith, Rusk, Cherokee, Henderson, and Van Zandt counties. The Piney Woods Substance Abuse Coalition covers Gregg, Harrison, and Marion counties. The Northeast Texas Coalition Against Substance Abuse covers Franklin, Titus, Morris, Cass and Bowie counties. The prescription drug pouches were awarded to the coalitions ...

Tags Archiveskilgore