John Cornyn: “I rise to thank and congratulate my colleagues for passing the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act by unanimous…”

“I rise to thank and congratulate my colleagues for passing the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act by unanimous consent. I am proud to have worked closely with Senator Klobuchar to draft and introduce the bill, and I thank her and her chief counsel, Paige Herwig, for their ideas and advocacy of commonsense drug disposal solutions. The Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act will make a cost-free change to the Controlled Substances Act to permit State and private entities to accept unused controlled substances through drug take-back programs. As the Senate unanimously recognized, the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act is necessary because up to 17 percent of prescribed medication goes unused every year. State, local, and private entities already have established drug take-back programs to keep some of this unwanted medication away from children and drug abusers. But the Federal Controlled Substances Act, CSA, currently prevents these drug take-back programs from accepting the most dangerous medications--controlled substances. The CSA particularly prohibits people prescribed controlled substances from giving them to any person or entity without express permission from the Drug Enforcement Administration. As a result, individual consumers and long-term care facilities now either stockpile unwanted controlled substances or dispose of them in improper ways, such as flushing them into the water supply. This can lead to drug diversion or water pollution.”