IMO, it should not be an option at all.
Any more, there are so many places that will take in drugs to be destroyed rather than adding to landfill/ground water contamination (excluding other reasons for controlled substances).
If someone is so isolated that they live off the land, how did they get the drugs in the first place? 
I’m not debating it, but for whatever reason it seems the OP can’t find these places. Hence the question here.
You are probably right, although this depends on where you live. Also, giving it away to someone who needs it is one thing. Selling it to someone else is more likely to get you in trouble if you get caught.
Well, around here, that’s generally legal because I get multi-dose vials that are not prescribed to any specific horse. The only law is “must only be given by or under the orders of a veterinarian.” As long as a vet told you to give the dex to a different horse, you are probably okay.
It probably goes without saying, but obviously, you don’t want to take a drug prescribed for a trainer’s horse and give it to a client’s horse unless a vet has told you to do so. No matter how benign the drug seems to be or no matter how standard the treatment protocol is. If you give it without veterinarian orders, and the client’s horse has a reaction to it? You’re gonna get sued. And you are guaranteed to lose that lawsuit. So if nothing else, asking a vet first is a CYA thing when dealing with someone else’s horse. Even with a drug seemingly as common and harmless as bute or banamine. Anaphylactic reactions to common NSAIDs are very rare, but they are not unheard of.
Probably not. But again, you could get sued if the other horse reacts to that drug. And if you do, you are guaranteed to lose that lawsuit because of the simple fact you gave someone a prescription drug without a license to do so. So again, I’d still advise against doing so. If nothing else, you are exposing yourself to some pretty serious civil liability risk. Especially if it’s a business relationship where you gave the drug to a client’s horse instead of a “I was just trying to help out a friend as a personal favor” situation.
And yet the sky isn’t falling, and the thousands of innocent med sharing events every year at barns all over the world don’t seem to have created an equine-ambulance-chaser culture where petty lawsuits abound over good samaritans’ equine first aid supplies.
Yeah … I’m gonna continue to give (oral) banamine to panicked owners of horses in GI distress if I happen to have it on hand. I have yet to find any of your arguments persuasive (nor do I put much stock in your veterinary or legal opinions more generally). And I’m suddenly feeling even more thankful that the barn staff and trainers that have participated in my horse’s care over the years don’t think like you, and have been more concerned about my horse’s health than about petty hypotheticals when emergencies have arisen.
Once again the calculus works out a lot better in my estimation (vanishingly small risk of acute, adverse Banamine reaction + reasonable nature of people I willingly associate with + potential to help a horse = decent odds of an outcome I can live with). The ask-a-vet disclaimer goes without saying, but when things go south fast enough that intervention is needed before the vet can respond, I’m definitely not going to be haunted by the federal raids or lawsuits that some internet stranger whose thinking I find generally bizarre is certain will befall me.
Well, in that case, I hope you have read this article and many others like it: https://horsesidevetguide.com/bute-banamine
It’s not a legal opinion that you will be held civilly liable for giving a prescription drug without veterinary orders, and the owner of the horse ends up with a dead horse or a horse who is worse off than they were before. That’s legal fact. Again, please read the article I linked to. Banimine and bute are VERY commonly misused.
Actually, my horse’s health is paramount above all else. That’s why I don’t pretend to be a veterinarian and give prescription drugs without vet advice (with obvious exceptions. I will give epinephrine in an emergency because 5 minutes can make the difference between life and death. It’s entirely possible I won’t be able to talk to a vet on the phone in time.)
If you, as a barn staff member, gave my horse a drug without veterinary advice, and pretended to be a vet when you are, in fact, not one, and my horse ended up dead? I’ll be blunt. Not only I would I sue you, but I’d beat the crap out of you until the police stopped me and arrested me for assault. Again, my horse’s health IS the most important thing to me. Which is why I don’t want people like you pretending they are qualified to make decisions that only a vet should be making.
You are aware that in some cases, Banamine can make colic worse, right? If you are not, please read some of the cautionary articles written by veterinarians about it. Again, this is why I don’t want people like you giving prescription drugs to my horse without veterinary advice unless it is a dire emergency. You think you know what you are doing. The simple fact is, you do not. And I can link to several articles regarding the improper use of banamine and bute that prove you do not.
Detailing the physical violence you’d like to subject me to in retaliation for imagined crimes? Yeah, that’s gonna convince me to accept your argument.
Nobody said anything about impersonating a veterinarian or administering drugs to horses without owners’ permission – but I do admire your ability to embroider fanciful details into your posts. Again, I’ll take my legal and veterinary advice from people who live in the real world, rather than from hostile internet posters who show more evidence of vivid imagination than good sense.
You’re batting pretty high for thread derailments and I’d hate to blow your stats, but I think it’s fair to point out that the “serious legal trouble” and physical violence you imagine visiting on me have nothing to do with whether unneded meds can be responsibly repurposed or whether a community disposal program is the only option. You can keep those articles about banamine (and the piece of moral high ground you imagine you’re standing on) all to yourself – I don’t intend to follow you down your latest rabbit hole.
The obvious point was that my horse’s health is the most important thing to me. And if someone kills my horse by giving them a prescription drug without veterinary advice? I will do more to them than just sue them. Sorry, but if you were trying to bait me? Well, you succeeded. I don’t respond well to people who accuse me of putting legal issues in front of my horse’s well-being.
The only place you should be getting your veterinary advice from is a veterinarian. But that was pretty much my point, wasn’t it?
Which only reinforces my point. Not only do you have no clue what you are doing when it comes to giving banamine and bute without vet advice, but you aren’t even willing to educate yourself on the issue by reading the latest veterinary opinions on it. All the more reason I would NOT want you giving my horse banamine without talking to vet first.
Also, I didn’t derail the thread. I supported my assertion that prescription drugs are prescription drugs for a reason. And why you should not sell them or give them to other people unless you are licensed to do so.
There’s a reason it takes 10+ years of post-secondary education + internships to become a vet, you know. And I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that they have knowledge you and I do not have.
Nobody is advocating for administering drugs without veterinary advice – until you injected it with your ire, this conversation was simply about the ethics making prescription drugs available to other horse owners whose animals have some need for those substances.
Nobody wants to give your horse banamine without your permission. No need to get exercised about some situation you’ve imagined.
And you are not in a position to evaluate my dedication to education nor my understanding of the pharmacology of any substance, nor are those things relevant to the general issue of making non-controlled medications available to another horse owner. You can get angry about my disagreement with your viewpoint and cast aspersions all day long, but I still do not see a coherent argument developing in your posts.
Well, I’ll try to make it as coherent as I can, then, in a series of bullet points.
You should not give prescription drugs to other people. It’s dangerous and illegal.
You should not give a prescription drug to a horse without veterinary advice unless it is a critical emergency. Again, an example would be epineprhrine in the case of anaphylactic shock. That’s a situation where you clearly might not have time to wait for a vet to call you back and tell you what to do.
A responsible horse owner should already have emergency drugs on hand. They should probably have epineprhine, dex, and bute or banamine or maybe both. But they should NOT give any of those drugs without veterinarian advice unless it is a critical emergency. Keep in mind that none of them except epinerphrine are going to work fast enough where you can’t take the time to talk to a vet on the phone about whether it should be given or not. And again, modern research suggests that giving banamine can sometimes make colic worse. NSAID’s can also mask serious underlying problems and give a false sense of security that the horse is fine now, when in fact, it really isn’t, and needs veterinary attention quickly.
And you are not in a position to evaluate my dedication to my horse, or how I determine when something is a critical emergency and I cannot wait for a vet to call me back, vs. when it’s urgent, but I can wait 10 minutes for a callback from a vet who tells me what I should do. And yet, that’s exactly what you tried to do. You tried to accuse me of being more concerned about legal issues than I am for my horse’s well being. And nothing could be further from the truth.
Is that why you’re keeping this thread going? It’s because you don’t think I understand your dedication to your horse? :sigh: I’m sure you love your horse very much.
I guess I’m confused then. Why did you accuse me of not doing so? Why did you accuse me of putting legal issues and such ahead of the the health of my horse?
Edit: Maybe we should move this to a private discussion? At this point it seems like we have some kind of misunderstanding at a very fundamental level that might be better worked out in private.
All I said is that I don’t agree with your thinking, and I appreciate that the people who’ve nursed my horse in emergencies haven’t been waiting for me to sue them. Your imagination did the work from there.
I have no desire to have any private communication with you ever.
Please Please Please do not take the advice to flush unused prescription medications down the toilet!
Stuff that goes down the toilet does not magically vanish and the waste water treatment system does not have some magical ‘remove the drugs’ system.
On the topic of sharing meds.
I can say for a fact that when I am on the phone with my vet talking about Dobbin with colic like symptoms they ask ‘do you have some banamine’, they do not ask 'do you have some banamine that has been prescribed to this specific horse. And when they get there and I say ‘I need to buy some replacement banamine, I used up Star Sparkle’s stash to give this dose to Dobbin’ they do not cringe or anything.
I think it was your imagination that did the work of reading way too much into my statements, which was just to state that encouraging people to commit federal crimes on a public forum is probably not the best idea in the world.
Very well.
On the topic of disposing of unused meds. Don’t know what some have done but none of my phamacies will take any meds for disposal. That’s two major chains and two big box type stores with pharmacies. My vets won’t take it eithe. They al gave me a handout with the address of the nearest disposal location, typically a police station around here, local and state laws differ.
Usually a mistake to assume because that’s what you do, you can make a blanket statement that’s what everybody can do because everybody can’t.
No not her imagination. In the real world, barns use medications prescribed to horses for other horses. In the real world, people give permission either over the phone and/or in writing like I did with my barn. If it is a critical situation and my barn cannot get a hold of me, they are to call the vet on my behalf and do whatever is necessary.
WRT flushing, I only brought it up because it seemed the OP couldn’t find another option. Obviously it’s not the best choice.
Boy, for a newby, Moonriver is somewhat aggressive. An alter, perhaps?
I was going to vote “crazy horse lady.” Apparently it’s cool to dispatch small animals but if you don’t exhaust all possible avenues no matter the cost euthanasia for a horse is bad.
Signed a sorta newbie.
I don’t have a problem with anything you just said. If a vet says do it? Then do it. Sometimes, I don’t even have a problem with it if a vet has not authorized it. Again, in a CRITICAL situation, there might not be time to contact either the owner or a vet. If a horse gets stung by a bee and has an anaphylactic reaction? I’m giving epinephrine NOW. I’m not contacting a vet first. I’m not contacting the owner first. This is obviously a situation where every single minute delay in treatment can mean the difference between life and death for the horse.
But that was not the situation the OP was talking about. The situation was “I have a $120 of medication I don’t need. Not sure what to do with it.” And a bunch of people started suggesting giving it to someone else, or even SELLING it to someone else. Please keep in mind that is what I was responding to. I don’t really think that’s a good idea, and it can be very dangerous to the horse.
I wonder how many times people have lost horses because they decided “I think I know what is wrong, so I will just give bute, or banamine and won’t contact a vet for advice first.” Only to find out too late that the NSAID they gave ended up masking an underlying problem that needed more aggressive treatment. Or worse the NSAID made the original problem worse.
I’ve seen too many horror stories of people giving prescription medications to horses because they “think they know what is wrong” only to have that story end in tragedy. Example, immunosuppressant drugs. If a horse is having an inappropriate allergic reaction to something? They can be life saving. On the other hand, if the horse is fighting an infection? Giving these drugs can be fatal. Again, this is why I think unless it is truly a life or death emergency, prescription meds should not be given without vet advice.
Newbie to the forum. But not a newbie to working with horses. I originally registered on here because during routine worming, I had a horse have a severe reaction to Zimectrin Gold. I googled it to find out if anyone else had had similar reactions, and I landed on this site. I felt it was my duty to register for an account here and report the reaction as “yet another example of this product causing the very same severe reaction.” I guess since then, I just got sucked in to the forum.
No, I am not an alter. Just a bit strongly spoken.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
