Experts say leaving the prescription labels on your medicine bottles before throwing them away could be dangerous. 

Protecting your privacy is important when it comes to medicine labels. 

After using them, you should destroy the labels or black them out with a marker so thieves don’t get access to your personal information. 

One local Better Business Bureau accredited pharmacy that’s been in business for almost 50 years– shreds or blacks out labels on patients’ prescriptions. 

Owner and Pharmacist of Acadiana Prescription Shop, Joel Fruge, says, “If people bring in their vials and want us to refill them, which happens often, we do either tear the label off and then destroy that and put it in our shredder or we mark through it with a black marker.” 

Experts say blacking out your personal name and prescription number on your medicine bottle after you use it could protect your identity. 

“Anyone could get that prescription name from anywhere so that’s not going to affect anything but your name and your prescription number and usually that has to match anyway whenever someone calls in… possibly a phone number also but not every label has like an address on it,” explains Fruge. 

When patients have multiple prescriptions, there is a different label and number for each, so it’s suggested that you black out all of that information after use. 

Fruge adds, “We’ll mark through them or they can call their prescriptions in to any pharmacy in town and that way they can destroy them on their own if it gives them that peace of mind however if we get any piece of medical information we do destroy it.”     

If you’re also looking for a drug take-back program, the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office offers a container where you can drop off your prescription bottles.