Santa Clara County Launches State’s First “Drug Donation” Pharmacy

It’s an innovative concept that could revolutionize an important facet of healthcare, and it has finally come to California by way of Santa Clara County.

On Tuesday, Santa Clara opened the state’s first “drug donation pharmacy” in San Jose where mounds of unused medication can be donated to those in need. The program promises to take care of two common problems, providing patients with critical medication while also ensuring that unused pills don’t end up in the state’s landfills and waterways.

“We’ve got perfectly good unused medications on one side of town, and we’ve got folks desperately in need on the other side of town,” County Supervisor Joe Simitian said during the grand opening of the Better Health Pharmacy Tuesday. The vast majority of those medications are from nursing homes which toss out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of medication each year. Now, those drugs will be available to individuals who need them free of cost, no co-pay.

It took the county nearly a decade to implement the idea. The nation’s first donation pharmacy was started in Georgia, but the concept has been steadily growing ever since.

Read more about Santa Clara County’s Better Health Pharmacy here.

Image Credit: Flickr User epsos, https://flic.kr/p/dnd4f9 via (CC BY 2.0)