By AP/KWMU
Jefferson City, MO – A Missouri House committee with consider a bill Tuesday that would allow some unused medicines to be sold to the poor.
Republican Rep. Bob Johnson said he got the idea after his father died in a nursing home.
He says his father had some some packaged, individual doses of prescription drugs that had never been used. But when he died, the nursing home was required to destroy the drugs.
Now Johnson is trying to create a state repository for unused prescription drugs.
Under his bill, people would be allowed to drop off un-opened medications at pharmacies, clinics or hospitals. The drugs would then be resold to the poor for what Johnson described as a small handling fee.
He says the program would be open to people who make slightly more than Medicaid recipients, but are still low income.