On Saturday, police agencies across the country, including the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office and Maryland State Police, collected unwanted medications — no questions asked — as part of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s 10th annual National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.
About 658 pounds of unused prescription drugs were collected in total by the Sheriff’s Office’s and the Maryland State Police Westminster Barracks on Saturday, an impressive take that exceeded expectations based on previous years. The Sheriff’s Office collected 103 pounds at its two mobile stops and 555 pounds of drugs were dropped off at the Westminster Barrack, the largest amount collected at any of the state police’s 22 barracks Saturday, according to spokesman Greg Shipley.
Take Back Day events like Saturday’s are important because they put the issue front of mind to check for unwanted prescriptions and get them out of the house. But we’re bringing new prescriptions and medications into our homes all the time.
Fortunately, local law enforcement collect unused medications all year in deposit boxes at any of the municipal police departments, the Maryland State Police Westminster Barrack and Sheriff’s Office locations in Carroll County. So if you missed out on Saturday’s collections, there is still an opportunity to dispose of unwanted drugs and medications in your home.
Doing so reduces the number of potentially addictive drugs in our communities from falling into the wrong hands.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that you are 40 times more likely to be addicted to heroin if you are addicted to prescription drugs,” Carroll County State’s Attorney Brian DeLeonardo told us last week. “This is a component of dealing with our heroin overdose and addiction problem because it often — almost invariably — starts with prescription drugs.”
Prescription and over-the-counter drugs are the most commonly abused substances by teens age 14 and older, after marijuana and alcohol, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA, and about 52 million people in the U.S. older than 12 have used prescription drugs nonmedically in their lifetime.
Why are they so popular? They’re easy to gain access to. About 62 percent of teens surveyed by NIDA said prescription drugs are easy to get from their parent’s medicine cabinets and 52 percent said they’re available everywhere — the top two reasons given for using prescription drugs.
Many people probably don’t even realize they have old prescriptions lying around in medicine cabinets, desk drawers and other places around their home, and might not immediately notice if they were taken.
Fighting our prescription drug and overdose problems in the county starts at home. Make it a point to clean out medicine cabinets and other places in your home at least twice a year of unwanted medications and take them to the police stations to be disposed of properly.
