Even though most of us dispose of prescription drugs by throwing them in the trash, they can still end up in our drinking water. Water drains through a landfill, and some of the prescription drugs get into the water. The water from the landfill, called leachate, eventually goes into rivers. When drinking water is drawn from these rivers, there is a chance that the water could be contaminated with prescription drugs. To prevent this, Maine is debating a law that would force drug manufacturers to develop a program to properly dispose of the medications. Personally, I'm glad that this is finally happening, and I'm actually surprised that such a program didn't already exist. There are programs for fluorescent light bulbs, which are not as widespread as prescription drugs. I don't know about everybody else, but I don't want my water to be contaminated with something that could be harmful. Plus, if we are taking in prescription drugs and antibiotics with our water, couldn't that make more diseases resistant to the drugs? It seems to me that having a disposal program like this would be beneficial to most people, and would solve more problems than it would cause.
1. Do you support the pending law in Maine? Why or why not?
2. Do you feel comfortable knowing that there could be prescription drugs in your drinking water?
3. Who do you feel is responsible for prescription drugs in drinking water, the government or the drug manufacturers? Explain.
Yes I do support the pending law in Maine. One reason in that having drugs in our water can be harmful to use because it is not safe to be taking someone's drugs. Also having high concentrations of certian contaminants can be harmful to the enviornment. I have actually never really thought about it until now. No, I do not feel comfortable with perscription drugs in my water. Taking someones elses medician can lead to and illness and I would not be suprise to even learn that it could lead to death. I don't think that it is likely to die form that. I don't really know who to say has the blame because I think that even we the people have some blame in it too. The way how I see it is that the government should have thought about the posibilities that prescriptions could get into the water. I think that the drug manufactures should have advertis to the consumer that the prescription could leak inot your water supply. And I think we should have paid attention to what we though away and the possiblities of it getting into our water.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that this is a great development to help us have better drinking water, and I 100% support it. We shouldn't have to be harmed by perscription drugs being carelessly tossed out, especially since this is so preventable. If so many people are being harmed by this problem, I don't see why not. There is no reason why this debated topic shouldn't become a law and I see no downfalls of this whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteI did some more research on this, and found a lot of neat facts and information that you guys might want to check out. Here is a link to the website to find out more:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-drugs-tap-water_N.htm
I found out from reading this site that in 24 major areas throughout the whole country were found to have contaminated water.
3)I don't think that it is the government's or the drug manufacturers fault. It is our own fault for not disposing of them correctly. Everyone has contributed to this problem, and we can't really point the blame on just one person or one group of people. I think that there should definitely be more advertisement because I didn't know anything about it until reading this.
Here are a few questions that you guys might be interested in, or that you might be able to answer:
1) Do you think that there should be programs created to raise awareness on this matter in other places besides Maine?
2) Do you think that this is really something we need to worry about, or is it being more blown up than neccessary?
3) Do you think that ourselves as individuals can make a difference on this topic? How about other issues that have come up in this blog? I know that a lot of people think that we can't do much since we're just teenagers, but I disagree. What are your opinions on this?
This is a link picture that I saw that really helped me understand more about this:
http://www.wellnessuncovered.com/joomla/images/stories/drugtap.jpg
It has a faucet hooked up to a lot of pills, and shows how they are just going to come right through with the water. Although this is kind of metaphoric, in reality it is possible that we are drinking those drugs.
Reflection:
ReplyDeleteThis is very surprising and alarming to me, because I never would have guessed that there could be prescription drugs in our water. Our water is already contaminated enough, and know there is the possibility of prescription drugs in it?! That is a serious issue and I hope they find a solution or put a law in place to prevent just simply throwing out pills and such. This scares me in a way, because the water I am drinking could now be even more dangerous and contaminated with medications and drugs.
One Question:
I do have one question:
If they made a law preventing improper disposal of prescription drugs, how would they enforce it and be positive that people were following it? People could still just throw out their prescriptions if they are too lazy to dispose of it properly, or do not know how. And the government may never know that they were doing this, leaving our water contaminated.
Also, I do support the law in Maine, because in my opinion, the outcomes of that are only positive. It will bring healthier and less-contaminated water. Although people may not feel like properly disposing of their prescription, it would help a lot and prevent a lot of illnesses and sicknesses.
ReplyDeleteI read an article about anti depressants in water making fish less likely to swim away from predators because it was making them lethargic. If someone in this blog wants to read the article and summarize for the class I will consider giving extra credit if they do a good job. See me if interested :)
ReplyDelete