Racine County residents can turn in their unwanted prescription drugs from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29, at the Dover Town Hall, 4110 S. Beaumont Ave., Kansasville.
The Take Back drug collection is being held by the Racine County Sheriff’s Office, Western Racine County Health Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration to give the public the opportunity to help prevent drug abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused and unwanted prescription drugs. The service is free and anonymous, no questions will be asked.
Only prescription and over-the-counter medications will be accepted Saturday. Do not bring any illegal drugs, needles/sharps, bio-hazardous material or beauty products.
Last April, Americans turned in more than 500,000 pounds (nearly 300 tons) of prescription drugs at 5,600 sites operated by the DEA and state and local law enforcement partners. In its four previous Take Back events, DEA and its partners took in more than 1.5 million pounds of pills.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the initiative addresses vital public safety and health issues. Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the United States are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs.
Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet. In addition, American are now advised that their usual methods for disposing of unused medicines – flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash – pose potential safety and health hazards.
Four days after the DEA’s first Take Back event, the U.S. Congress passed the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010, which amends the Controlled Substances Act to allow an “ultimate user” of controlled substance medications to dispose of them by delivering them to entities authorized by the attorney general to accept them.
The Act also allows the attorney general to authorize long-term care facilities to dispose of their residents’ controlled substances in certain instances.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is drafting regulations to implement the Act. Until the new regulations are in place, local law enforcement agencies and the DEA will continue to hold prescription drug Take Back events every few months.
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