The 3rd Annual American Medicine Chest Challenge Helps Raise Drug Abuse Awareness in Abilene [VIDEO]

The 3rd Annual American Medicine Chest Challenge (AMCC) will take place in Abilene and nationwide. The AMCC is a public health initiative to raise awareness about the dangers of prescription drug abuse and also serves as a yearly check up on your prescription and non-prescription drugs in everyone's medicine cabinets. If it's old and expired Pioson Control and the AMCC says "dispose of it, properly.This historic and lifesaving event will take place in communities across America on Saturday, November 10th, 2012. That's when the American Medicine Chest Challenge (AMCC) will be sending representatives to help with the medication disposal. In many communities the local fire-stations and police departments will be taking in the unused, unwanted, and expired drugs to be disposed of properly.

The American Medicine Chest Challenge issues this five-step challenge to families in West Texas:
• Take inventory of your prescription and over-the-counter medicine.
• Lock your medicine chest.
• Dispose of your unused, unwanted, and expired medicine in your home or at an American Medicine Chest Challenge Disposal site.
• Take your medicine(s) exactly as prescribed.
• Talk to your children about the dangers of prescription drug abuse.

Source: AMCC website

According to AMCC Chief Executive Officer Angelo M. Valente, “the goal of this community based public health initiative is to inform families of the need to dispose of their unwanted medicines because these excess medicines can be a danger lurking in the family home.”

Sgt. Tony Lassetter of the Abilene Police Department Youth Division says "there's been an alarming increase in teens being apprehended with prescription drugs not prescribed to them. They most likely stole them from a family member, like grandma or grandpa."   Sgt. Lassetter went on to say "Xanax, Vicodin and Hydrocodone are just a few of the chosen drugs kids today are abusing. We tell people to hide and lock up your medicines because we've also seen an increase in home burglaries where the only thing taken were their prescription drugs."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that prescription drug abuse is at an epidemic stage in America, the death toll alone from overdoses from prescribed painkillers has tripled in the past ten years and more than 40 people die every day from overdoses involving prescription painkiller and non-prescription pain relievers. Now the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy says over 70 percent of the people who abuse prescription painkiller either got them drugs from friends or family members. America's hospitals have seen a 400% increase in admissions for people abusing prescription drugs in the past decade.

This is the AMCC television commercial.