'Med Destroyers' donated to Heroin and Opioid Task Force to help in effort to combat drug abuse



MILWAUKEE -- A product that dissolves medicines was donated to the City-County Heroin and Opioid Task Force. This after Milwaukee's Public Safety Committee adopted a resolution to create the task force.



The task force is spearheaded by Milwaukee Alderman Michael Murphy, and the intergovernmental effort will focus heavily on public health through both prevention and education methods not only for patients but also health care providers. This new product donated to the force will sure help their efforts.

Friday morning, January 6th, during the Public Safety Committee meeting, a resolution was adopted for a heroin and opioid task force.



"This is part of that ongoing effort of realizing there is no one easy solution on the way out," said Alderman Jim Bohl.

Alderman Jim Bohl



The task force will be made up of eleven members from both the city and county.

Officials will try to come up with ways to reduce the number of drug-related deaths. Their work through prevention and education will focus on a collaborative effort.

"There's no one-step approach and no one-step answer but it's important for us to realize that no one entity is going to be able to work in isolation and be successful," said Bohl.

Their efforts will be jump started by a registered nurse who has a way to destroy unused, expired medications -- the the Med Destroyer. Each kit comes with pre-filled pallets that destroys medications.

Med Destroyer



"And the medications would be dropped into the first line and then you add water into the first line, said the inventor and designer of the Med Destroyer, Jennifer Reno, Reno Products LLC.

Jennifer Reno



This has been a five-year venture for Jennifer Reno, who has seen firsthand the opioid abuse problem, where nursing homes would have stockpiles of old medications from previous patients.



She says this product will help combat the issue.

"I designed it down to a simple product that can fit in a nurse travel bag, that can fit in a medicine cabinet, that can fit in a narcotic lock box in a nursing home and can be used easily for the consumer and it's very inexpensive", said Reno.

Med Destroyer



2,000 Med Destroyer kits were donated to the City-County Heroin and Opioid Task Force Friday morning. Up next for the task force, while it was approved unanimously through the Public Safety Committee, it still needs to pass in Common Council later this month.