Submitted by the Washington State Health Care Authority.

In Washington, 82% of overdose deaths involved opioids in 2023 (Washington Department of Health). In an ongoing effort to combat prescription opioid misuse and prevent overdose deaths, Friday Harbor Drug is partnering with the Washington State Health Care Authority on its Lock Up Your Meds program to increase the number of community members safely locking up their prescription opioid medications. The program launched in March and will run through June in 16 pharmacies across the state.

Nearly half of people misusing pain relievers, including prescription opioids, get them from a friend or family member. Simple steps like locking up prescriptions can prevent them from being misused or causing accidental overdoses. Yet, according to a recent study conducted by HCA, only 44% of Washingtonians surveyed actually lock up their prescription medication.

To help address this gap between knowledge and the action of locking up medication, the Lock Up Your Meds program supplies pharmacies with free medication locking bags and prescription locking bottles to distribute to patients receiving an opioid prescription.

The program relies on pharmacists having conversations with their patients about the safe storage of opioids. By leaning on the influence and trust pharmacists have in their community, Lock Up Your Meds aims to break down the barriers people say prevent them from locking up medications – a key one being lacking a way to store them securely – and drive behavior change through personal conversations.

“Pharmacies play a crucial role in keeping our communities safe and informed,” says Dr. Charissa Fotinos, HCA deputy chief medical officer. “We are grateful to all our local pharmacy partners for their commitment to educating residents about preventing opioid misuse and for promoting responsible medication use across Washington.

As part of the program, pharmacists at Friday Harbor Drug will engage customers who receive opioid prescriptions in a conversation about the importance of safe storage and will ask them to make a personal commitment to lock up their medications. The program is the first of its kind in the country and has been developed based on a behavior change model researched by Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr, which shows that when a person makes a personal commitment (or pledge) to take a specific action, the likelihood of that individual following through with the action increases significantly.

From March through April, participating pharmacies have distributed a total of 297 locking devices, held 143 conversations about opioid safe storage and secured 70 pledges to lock up medications.

A facet of HCA’s current opioid-misuse prevention campaign, Starts with One, this program takes an innovative approach to involve community members in addressing the opioid epidemic. The program will also include a voluntary evaluation survey for participants in order to measure outcomes with the goal of expanding the program to even more pharmacies in Washington over the next few years.

To learn more about the Starts with One campaign, visit GetTheFactsRX.com.

To connect with HCA, visit www.hca.wa.gov.