fig1 depicts a skin - worn patch 10 of a class utilized with transdermal delivery of an abusable substance such as an opioid . the patch is depicted generally by 10 and includes a skin fastening adhesive - containing layer 12 and an opioid - containing layer designed to contact the skin at 14 . a disposal container or pouch designed to accompany the skin - worn patch 10 is shown generally by the reference character 16 and includes a layer of absorbent material 18 attached to one side of the container 16 in the manner such that insertion of the used skin - worn patch 10 as is shown by the arrow 20 with the opioid layer 14 facing the adsorptive material 18 , ensures that contact will occur between the layers 14 and 18 , thereby adsorbing and deactivating the opioid from layer 14 . the container 16 is also provided with a means of sealing the patch 14 inside such as exemplified by adhesive strips 22 on each side of the container . in this manner , the container 16 containing the used patch 14 may then be thrown away with the knowledge that the opioid material contained in the layer 14 of the skin - worn patch 10 has been successfully deactivated by the adsorptive material in the layer 18 . in the case of opioids , this is preferably activated carbon . the second embodiment is shown in fig2 a and 2 b . those drawings illustrate a simplified schematic representation of a skin - worn patch 30 for the transdermal delivery of a therapeutic drug material such as an opioid contained in a layer 32 . a layer containing an amount of absorbent material , such as activated carbon , is shown at 34 . in fig2 a , the patch 30 is depicted as it would appear when applied to the skin of a patient and as it would appear during administration of the abusable substance to the patient . the patch is provided with a lightly adhering or releasable separation membrane 36 which separates the substance to be administered in layer 32 from the absorbent material in layer 34 . the membrane 36 is attached to or is provided with an integrally formed connector shown at 38 which contains an amount of adhesive 40 which causes the connector 38 to adhere to the skin of a patient shown at 42 . the normal patch adhesive overlayer which attaches the patch to the skin is shown at 44 . fig2 b depicts the patch 30 as it is being removed from the skin 42 of a patient . note that the removal of the adhesive layer 44 with the patch leaves the adhesive 40 with connector 38 still attached to the skin . in this manner , the connector 38 causes the separator membrane 36 to be pulled out from between the layers 32 and 34 thereby allowing the absorbent material in layer 34 to contact the remaining amount of active abusable substance in layer 32 deactivating the remaining amounts of abusable substance in the patch . fig3 depicts a plot of a uv / vis spectrophotometry scan of a 37 . 7 mg / l solution of fentanyl citrate . the absorption from 200 - 240 nm is due to the fentanyl citrate present in the solution , and the magnitude of the absorbance is directly related to the dissolved concentration of that compound . it is readily seen that the concentration of the drug is significant . fig4 represents a second uv / vis spectrophotometry scan plot of the solution of fig3 after 5 minutes of contact with activated carbon . note the dramatic reduction in the amount of absorption from 200 - 240 nm . the data shows that an estimated 97 % of the fentanyl citrate had been removed from solution by 5 minutes of contact with activated carbon . only 11 micrograms from the original content of 377 micrograms of fentanyl citrate was remaining in solution . the activated carbon utilized to adsorb the fentanyl citrate from the solution of fig3 was then taken and placed in a 50 % ethanol / water solution in an attempt to redissolve the adsorbed fentanyl citrate . the plot of fig5 represents another uv / vis spectrophotometry scan of the 50 % ethanol solution from which it appears that recovery of fentanyl citrate in the 50 % ethanol solution was extremely low , i . e ., less than 5 % of the drug was recovered . this indicates that the adsorption of the drug onto the carbon was not only almost complete , but also very tenacious . of the 366 micrograms of fentanyl citrate that was bound , only 13 micrograms was successfully separated in the attempted extraction process . it should further be noted that the layer of absorbent material 18 in fig1 and the layer 34 of absorbent material in fig2 a and 2 b can be selectively provided with an antagonist and / or an irritant material that goes into solution with the opioid or other abusable drug of interest in order to provide further means of abuse protection . in those cases where abusers have access to less commonly available solvents , which could possibly be used to separate the drug of interest from the binding agent , the antagonist and / or irritant compounds serve as added abuse resistance protection . it is also contemplated that under some circumstances antagonist and / or irritant compounds might replace the binding agent entirely as the active anti - abuse substance or ingredient of the layers 18 and 34 . this invention has been described herein in considerable detail in order to comply with the patent statutes and to provide those skilled in the art with the information needed to apply the novel principles and to construct and use such specialized components as are required . however , it is to be understood that the invention can be carried out by specifically different equipment and devices , and that various modifications , both as to the equipment and operating procedures , can be accomplished without departing from the scope of the invention itself .
the potential for substance abuse involving residual amounts of abusable substances remaining in used skin - worn patches is reduced by the provision of a system and method for combining the abusable substance with a separate anti - abuse substance agent as part of a removal or disposal procedure .