The numbers are huge. Nearly four billion prescriptions were filled in 2014 with nearly $85 million in over-the-counter medication sales every day, and the risk to the average Missoula household has risen, as well.

The Forum for Missoula Children and Youth and Safe Kids Missoula will host a community conversation on Wednesday, November 16 at 6:30 p.m. in the Gallagher Board Room at Community Medical Center.

Coordinator for the Missoula Prescription Drug Task Force, Brandee Tyree, said the conversation will be all about medication safety.

"It's pretty simple to use your medications properly, store them properly and dispose of them properly, but since it is affecting our community in such a great way, we want to have an opportunity to talk with some experts and hear from the community, as well," Tyree said. "We'll have a pharmacist from the University School of Pharmacy, a detective from the Missoula Police Department, and then I will be on hand to answer any questions related to prevention."

Tyree said the numbers of children that are using prescription drugs illegally are staggering.

"The use of stimulants with our high-schoolers that are not prescribed to them is around six to eleven percent, like your Adderall and such," she said. "Our narcotic rate of use without a prescription by our high schoolers, those are pain killers, is five to six percent. I think people would be very shocked to find out that this can happen to anybody that even a child could accidentally take."

 

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