Can I give away my unused prescription drugs?

Where do you draw the line at offering a favor to a friend?

A reader we’re calling Linda had been taking prescription medication for her high blood pressure for almost a year.

At first the medication seemed to work to keep her blood pressure at the level for which her physician hoped.

But for the past several weeks, her blood pressure had been inching up and, after a visit to her physician, he changed her prescription to a different medication to see if it would have better results.

Linda and a neighborhood friend we’re calling Winnie had compared notes while at a recent book club meeting about the various prescription medications they were taking. It turned out Winnie had been prescribed the same blood pressure medication that wasn’t working so well for Linda, but had been working just fine for Winnie for several years.

After Linda picked up the prescription for her new medication, she checked and found that the vial with the old prescription still had several dozen pills in it.

Figuring it would be a waste to simply toss out the old prescription, it crossed Linda’s mind that perhaps it would be OK to offer the remaining pills to Winnie. She knew Winnie’s doctor would only renew her prescription so many times before he insisted she come in for a checkup. Linda also knew Winnie hated to go to the doctor.

So why not share the remaining pills?

“Would that be OK to do?” Linda asked.

No. That would not be OK to do.

While her intentions might be to be helpful and avoid waste, sharing prescription drugs violates state and federal laws. If Winnie accepted any such offer — and she should not, repeat not — she would be breaking the law for possessing and taking a prescription intended for someone else.

(Full disclosure: I am not a lawyer, but you can look this up for yourself.)

In addition to the legal consequences, while Linda may believe she’d be doing Winnie a favor, but neither Linda’s expertise nor Winnie’s is to determine how much or what type of medication someone else might need. In an effort to do a friend a solid, Linda might be causing more harm to Winnie than good.

It’s good to avoid waste, but with rare exception, it’s not easy to donate prescription medication that has already been open or is expired.

Still, there are organizations that try to help avoid the waste. The social enterprise Supporting Initiatives to Redistribute Unused Medicine (SIRUM) has a helpful website (sirum.org) that guides organizations and people wanting to donate unopened or unexpired medication legally and safely to people who might not be able to afford to pay for the medications they are prescribed.

There’s likely a good reason Winnie’s doctor wants to see her in person to decide if the medication he has prescribed is still effective. If Linda wants to be a good friend to Winnie, she can offer to drive her to her physician and sit with her while she is waiting to be seen. But the right thing is to never offer your own prescribed drugs to anyone else.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

How do you respond to a new neighbor's gossip?

What’s the right thing to do when a resident new to your neighborhood mentions gossip she heard about a neighbor?

A reader we’re calling Rita was out walking when she saw a woman we’re calling Prudence walking up the stairs to her house. Prudence lived three doors down and across the street from Rita.

“Are you our new neighbor?” Rita asked Prudence. Prudence confirmed she and her partner had purchased the house and moved in a few weeks earlier to a newly built house in the old neighborhood.

“Would you like to see the house?” Prudence asked. Rita accepted the invitation and headed up the stairs to the front door of the house.

A quick tour and some small talk about where Prudence had lived before and how much she liked the new neighborhood followed. Rita offered to share any information about nearby stores and services Prudence might find useful.

Prudence thanked her and commented on how welcoming everyone in the neighborhood had been.

But she caught herself in her comment when it came to referencing, Simon, her neighbor directly next door. “Well, except for next door, but everyone has told me about him,” Prudence said.

Rita knew Simon. He had always been kind when it came to helping to clear a walk of snow or to say hello when she passed him by. Simon stayed to himself and rarely spent time outside of his house other than his backyard. But his house and yard were immaculately kept.

Rita knew that Simon had had some run-ins with parents of youngsters in the neighborhood who would run through his flower beds or leave their bicycles or scooters leaning up against the wall in his front yard. On at least one occasion, Simon yelled loudly at his neighbor’s children, which resulted in the parents calling the police to complain. Nothing came of the complaint and Simon continued to stay to himself and tend to his yard.

“I heard he’s a bit of a problem,” Prudence told Rita.

Rita responded that she’d never had an issue with Simon, but now believes she should have said more so Prudence’s view of him was not colored by others in the neighborhood who had a beef with him.

“Should I have said more?” Rita emailed me. “Should I have told Prudence how awful those little kids were? Or how the parents overreacted and began to speak ill of him to anyone who would listen?”

Rita did the right thing by responding just as she did to Prudence. She told her what she knew of Simon personally. Had she gone further, she likely would find herself spreading gossip about different neighbors, which may or may not have been true, since Rita had never actually seen the little boys trample Simon’s garden.

Simply nodding her head in agreement when Prudence said something about Simon would have been wrong. But by offering an honest assessment of her dealings with Simon she treated both Simon and Prudence with respect.

Rita wrote that she’d left Simon a plate of freshly baked cookies shortly after her exchange with Prudence, something she had done from time to time over the years. He was an older person living alone and Rita figured he could use some kindness from a neighbor.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Puzzling over returning flawed puzzle

Often, how to respond ethically to some of the more mundane things in life that puzzle us the most.

A reader we’re calling Pamela recently wrote to comment about how much she loves her local library. The library is located in the center of her town in a big old sprawling building. It’s well stocked and rare that Pamela can’t find what she is looking for.

Her library also has a “library of things” it lends out to cardholders. Games, gardening tools, slide to JPG converters and assorted other stuff are available to lend.

Pamela also noticed recently that the library has a sizable jigsaw puzzle collection that falls outside the jurisdiction of other collections.

The library doesn’t ask people to check the jigsaw puzzles out, but simply to take whatever one they want and then to return it when they are finished with it. All they ask is that the borrower fill out a small sheet of paper inside each jigsaw puzzle box that asks if any pieces are missing.

Aside from that, there’s no obligation and no record of any of the puzzles having been borrowed. It's a total honor system when it comes to borrowing, using, and returning.

It took Pamela a few days to find time to get around to the jigsaw puzzle she had borrowed. When she did, she realized it was a more challenging puzzle than she had anticipated, so it was taking her longer to complete it. “A lot of dark green to figure out,” wrote Pamela.

As she neared the puzzle’s completion, it became clear to Pamela that pieces were missing. At first, she thought one piece for certain was missing. By the time she had placed all the pieces in the box, it was clear that three pieces were missing.

“Either I dropped them somehow,” wrote Pamela, “or someone who borrowed the jigsaw puzzle before me hadn’t bothered to fill out the note about missing pieces.

“Should I even return the puzzle?” Pamela asked. “It’s missing pieces and they’re just going to get rid of it anyhow. Or should I just throw it out?”

Pamela is correct that it’s unlikely the library will keep her borrowed puzzle given the missing pieces.

But the agreement when she borrowed the puzzle was to return it when she was through and to fill out the missing-piece questionnaire before she returned the puzzle.

Granted, the library doesn’t know Pamela has the puzzle, since the borrowing was based on an honor system and didn’t go through the usual checkout process. But just because Pamela could toss the puzzle and never get caught or questioned about it does not make reneging on her initial borrowing commitment the right thing to do.

It might take more time to make the return. Ultimately, the library might not care.

Pamela should either call the library to ask whether she needs to return the jigsaw puzzle given its missing pieces or she should simply return the puzzle as she promised to do — not out of fear of getting caught, but because it’s the right thing to do.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy, emeritus, at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com. 

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin

(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.