By Karla Ward
McClatchy Newspapers
Lexington, Ky. (MCT) — It sounds like something Inspector Gadget or Wile E. Coyote might have invented to deter prescription drug abuse: a pill bottle that incinerates the medicine inside if someone tries to remove more than a single dose.
But the Pill Safe developers say it is a realistic product that could someday be used for controlled substances, such as OxyContin. The user presses a button to get a tablet, which is dispensed only if the appropriate length of time has passed since the previous dose was given.
Inside the battery-operated dispenser, pills are stacked next to a fuel component. If the user tries to force the mechanism, the fuel ignites, destroying all the tablets.
The idea for the Pill Safe, which is 4.5 inches tall and about 4 inches wide, came from Dr. Robert Muncy, a retired dentist who lives in Lexington, Ky., and Dr. Anthony McEldowney, an orthopedic surgeon who now works in West Virginia.
Several counties in Eastern Kentucky lead the nation for the amount of narcotic pain medications distributed per capita, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
The two doctors took their idea to the University of Kentucky several years ago, where it has been in development ever since.
The parts required to make the device cost less than $10. The developers say the cost would be worth it if the Pill Safe prevented users from selling prescriptions on the street.
Tom Henninger, an engineer in the University of Kentucky Center for Manufacturing, said the design is still being refined.
The developers are currently using rocket fuel to burn up the pills. Robert Lodder, a University of Kentucky professor of pharmaceutical science who has helped develop the concept, said "a little wisp of white smoke" comes out vents in the device when the contents ignite.
The developers would need approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and, ideally, they'll get a drug manufacturer to begin packaging pills in it, Lodder said.
Muncy said "it sure would be sweet" if the government required the use of the Pill Safe with controlled substances.
The Journal of Pharmaceutical Innovation published the developers' research on the product in its September/October issue. A patent is pending.
Tom Kubic, executive director of the nonprofit Virginia-based Pharmaceutical Security Institute, had not heard about the Pill Safe, but when it was described to him, he was skeptical.
"Anything that burns readily and easily presents all kinds of other problems," he said. "That could involve some pretty tricky engineering."
Lodder said that's what he initially thought, too. But now he said he's convinced "there aren't any engineering problems we can't beat."
He said the fuel burns so quickly and so hot, the drug is burned into the plastic and would be too difficult and costly for traffickers to remove.
The outside of the safe would not get hot enough to cause a house fire or burn the person holding the device, such as a child, Lodder said.
"You contain it by putting just enough rocket fuel to burn what's inside," he said.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
