Northstar in the News

Channel 2 spoke with Warren from Northstar and Elaine from Ladd Pharmacy today. Check out the video version of the following text here.

Boise pharmacy gives a green spin to protect Mother Earth
By Meteorologist Jennifer Robbins

BOISE - One Boise pharmacy hopes to make a little green by going green, and it goes beyond their energy-efficient lighting. They are including a creative way to deliver medications, that is, the prescription pills poured at Ladd Family Pharmacy is delivered using foot-power.

"Pharmaceuticals travel easy by bike not particularly large or bulky," said Warren O'Dell of North Star Courier. "We are able to help them reduce their carbon footprint."
Ladd Family Pharmacy opened this week, and they partnered with North Star Courier to put a "green spin" on deliveries.
"There are more and more cars on the road everyday, creating more and more greenhouse emissions," O'Dell said.

Pharmacist Elaine Ladd says her store is built out of green materials and she hopes such a foundation will allow her to build on bigger goals, that is, protect Mother Earth from what she prescribes to her patients.
"Medicine and drugs are actually leeching into the water supply through the landfills and there hasn't been a proper disposal of medications, so I'd like to change that," said Elaine Ladd, Ladd Family Pharmacy owner and pharmacist.
It's a program called "Drug Take Back," but, first, it needs support from state government.
"That consist of actually changing policy and changing law, which is a long process," Ladd said.
The program allows people to bring expired drugs to their pharmacist, so they aren't dumped in the wrong places.
"We could hire a service that could actually destroy them properly," Ladd said.
But for now, Ladd hopes Boise's first of its kind pharmacy, will make Eco-friendly differences one delivery at a time.
According to a study by the US Pharmacist Publication, nearly 5,000-tons of pharmaceuticals are discarded annually in the United States.
Ladd says only a handful of states, including our neighbors in Oregon, are part of the "Medication Take-Back program," and right now, it's illegal in Idaho to take back your prescription drugs to pharmacists.


Find this article at:
http://www.2news.tv/news/26258159.html