BY RILEY WILSON
Eudora residents will have the opportunity to safely clean out their medicine cabinets at the National Prescription Drug Take Back Day Saturday.
Twice a year, law enforcement agencies across the nation team up with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to provide a safe location for disposal of prescription drugs in an effort to prevent misuse.
Eudora Police Department Chief Wes Lovett said the day impacts Eudora by taking dangerous drugs out of the hands of those who no longer need them.
“What we’re offering is an avenue for people to bring their unused or expired prescription drugs, which in the long run can lead to a safer environment,” Lovett said.
This is the first year the Eudora Police Department has participated in Take Back Day. Unused or expired drugs can be disposed between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday at the Police Department or from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at AuBurn Pharmacy.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 130 Americans die from opioid overdose every day. Recycling these unused or expired prescription drugs removes the temptation to misuse them, Lovett said.
“If they have extra or they don’t need them anymore, then there’s a temptation there to sell them to the wrong people or put them in the hands of people who aren’t using them for the right reasons,” Lovett said.
At the April Take Back Day, over 13,500 pounds of prescription drugs were collected in Kansas alone. To put that in perspective, that’s more than the average weight of one elephant.
Nationally, over 930,000 pounds were collected in April, which is more than the average weight of two blue whales – the largest animal in the world.
In addition to the drop off location at the Police Department, AuBurn Pharmacy in Eudora has a MedSafe for safe disposal of drugs year-round.
Pharmacy manager Megan Hedden said she hopes the Take Back Day will motivate people to make recycling prescription drugs something they think about.
“Maybe encourage people to try to go through their cabinets once or twice a year and clean them out, get rid of those things that might potentially be harmful,” Hedden said. “Just make it something that you think about.”
AuBurn Pharmacy partnered with DCCCA, an organization that provides services to improve the well-being of the community, to provide free disposal bags to those who can’t attend on Saturday. The bags inactivate the drugs, making it safe to dispose of them in the trash.
The organization’s Prevention Program Coordinator Krista Machado said the day is especially important for keeping prescription drugs out of the hands of youth.
According to the 2017 Kansas Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 14.6 percent of Kansas youth reported taking prescription pain medicine without a doctor’s order.
“By disposing of those prescription medications, it reduces those access points so youth aren’t able to access the meds that might be left over in the medicine cabinet for misuse,” Machado said.
Additionally, she said older adults may accidentally take an expired or wrong drug when leftover medications are left in the home, which could lead to accidental poisonings.
Machado said the Take Back Day offers people a convenient way to dispose of prescription drugs that otherwise may be potentially harmful.
“I think it highlights the importance of getting those medications out of the medicine cabinet,” Machado said. “Not only to get them out of your house so that they’re not there and to just throw them away, but also to just educate that they can be dangerous, and they can be misused.”
Reach reporter Riley Wilson at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
Support our journalism by "subscribing" through a donation at https://www.launchku.org/project/16454/wall.
Commenti