I was looking over the City of Orem’s newsletter today and was surprised at some facts that were quoted. The article was on cleaning out your medicine cabinet.

**It stated that Utah leads the nation in prescription pain medication abuse.

**70% of those who get caught or admit to abusing prescription pain medications say they get them
from friends or   relatives—usually without their knowledge.

**In 2007, unintentional prescription pain medication overdoses were the #1 cause of injury deaths in Utah.
That is more than motor vehicle crashes.

The article suggests that we all go though our medicine cabinets and throw out any medications that are expired or no longer needed.  The City of Orem has installed a Drug Drop Off Box at the Orem Police Dept at 83 E. Center St. to provide us with a safe place to dispose of these drugs.

I see a connection on this problem with Real Estate in that when your home is for sale, you have people that you do not know coming through your home.  I think most agents do a good job of staying with those clients and keeping an eye on them while showing homes, however, I have been in situations where the buyers acted a little…weird.

I was once with buyers in a very nice home and I was lucky to have an agent friend along with me.  The potential buyer brought friends with him and eventually, they all kept trying to split up and wander around the house. I don’t think they counted on me bringing another agent because between the two of us, we did a great job of not letting them out of our sight.   I commented to my agent friend afterward that I had the feeling they were intentionally trying to split up to get out of our sight so they could do something.  He said, “I know! Me too!”

I have heard of people posing as buyers to find opportunities to search medicine cabinets for prescription pain medications. People that are abusing these drugs get desperate and creative to find them.

I think Orem City’s suggestion to get rid of the unnecessary drugs that may still be in our medicine cabinets is a good one.