How is Lock Your Meds an Opioid Campaign

Lock Your Meds was created in 2008, after the initial skyrocketing of prescription drug deaths.

The U.S. government approved the advertising of prescription opioids in 1994. The Association of Pain Management was hoping for a new time release opioids to treat chronic pain. These two factors created the perfect storm for opioid misuse to explode through marketing and false hope. 

Prescription drugs containing opioids flooded the market. People thought that seeing them advertised and receiving from their Doctors meant the opioids were safe. Two factors drive an increase in drug use: Perception of harm and Availability. 

When the government legalizes a drug, we intuitive believe it is safe. When a doctor gives us a drug, we really believe it is safe. As the medical profession and government begin to see negative consequences like Doctor Shopping, Pill Mills, and death rates, they started to send a different message. The government started to crack down on the prescribing of opioids. 

Lock Your Meds was created as a direct response to the problem of opioid abuse.  Lock Your Meds provides communities the tools to educated people about the dangers of prescription drugs, how to inventory your drugs, how to dispose of unused drugs.

Please visit www.LockYourMeds.org to learn more about this campaign and www.LockYourMeds.org/NC to see how an entire state has customized and taken the campaign to their communities.  It is our fervent hope that citizens will join us in sending one consistent recognizable message that can be customized to your state or community.

We don’t have enough money to outspend the advertisers but by joining together with one Campaign we create the critical mass needed to send a consistent, factual, message delivered through quality materials that touch the heart.

- Peggy Sapp