KSL TV investigation prompts bill on dumpster drug disposal


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SALT LAKE CITY — A KSL TV investigation is leading to proposed changes on Capitol Hill.

A few months ago, KSL TV reported on a mental health facility that was dumping pounds and pounds of prescription drugs in a public dumpster. It wasn't against the law, but now, a state senator is hoping to change that.

Like brothers often do, CJ Sorensen and his younger brother Alex did a lot together. Court records show over the years, both have had trouble with the law and with drugs.

"I used drugs with him for 13 years," said CJ Sorensen. "He was my best friend pretty much."

That trouble eventually led them straight to a dumpster located behind a medical supply and hospice business.

"Just went through the parking lot one day, looked in the dumpster and saw all sorts of pill bottles," CJ Sorensen. "I got in the dumpster, started digging through it and, I mean, there were full bottles of morphine sulfate, 33 milligrams, liquid Lortab shots. There was sometimes fentanyl patches. I found ketamine in it before, hydrocodone liquid, liquid lorazepam, diazepam bottles, and then any type of pill you could think of was just thrown away in there."

CJ and Alex's father, Scott Sorensen, said he's seen it too.

"I have actually seen that dumpster when it was full of medicine," he said. "It literally is pounds and pounds of probably thousand-plus blister packs of pills, syringes, tie-offs. I've seen it all in there."

Scott Sorensen said he took photos of the dumpster and called the Salt Lake County Health Department. They responded to his complaint and gave the business a warning about how to properly dispose of needles. However, nothing could be done about the drugs because according to the responding official, "there's no regulation to stop them from doing what they are doing."

"To dispose of these types of medications by just throwing them in a dumpster that's accessible to anybody should be illegal," Scott Sorensen said.

It's a problem the KSL Investigators have exposed before. In July 2017, prescription drugs were discovered in a mental health facility's dumpster in Price. According to the police report, officers recovered 29 pounds of medication that day.

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State Sen. Karen Mayne saw KSL's report and said she recognized there's a gap in the system.

"I watched it. I watched your station and I saw the problems and I saw what you were looking at," she said. "I thought maybe there's something we need to do."

Mayne is sponsoring a bill this legislative session calling on all nursing facilities to properly dispose of controlled substances and make sure they've all got a plan to carry it out.

"The legislation says if you do not take care of business, you will be punished," Mayne said. "You need to make sure those drugs, those medications, those syringes, those things that are in the medical practice path are disposed of correctly."

SB85 only applies to nursing facilities, but Mayne says it's at least a good start. She hopes other medical facilities will follow suit in the future.

The Sorensen family is relieved something is being done, but it comes a little too late for 28-year-old Alex Sorensen. He died at a hospital last August after contracting an infection. His father believes he got it after using a dirty needle found in that dumpster.

"If those drugs weren't being dumped in the dumpster, Alex would probably be alive today," Scott Sorensen said. "My feeling is that he would be alive today."

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Tania Mashburn and Mike Headrick

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