KNOX COUNTY – Despite the rainy weather, county residents showed up in full force on Saturday to dispose of their unwanted, unused and expired medication at Drug Take Back Day, hosted by the Knox Substance Abuse Action Team (KSAAT).
It was KSAAT’s second Drug Take Back Day of the year, as the organization has held a spring event in April and a fall event in October for the last three years.
In total, 129 pounds of medication were collected between four locations – one in Mount Vernon at the Knox County Health Department, one at the Danville Police Department, one at the Fredericktown Police Department and one at Foster’s Pharmacy in Centerburg.
Liquids, patches and inhalants were also collected on Saturday, a KSAAT press release noted. Volunteers and local law enforcement officials manned each station.
The purpose of Drug Take Back Day is to provide residents an avenue to properly dispose of their medication in order to create a healthier and safer environment, according to Program Coordinator Ashley Phillips.
“The substance use and abuse epidemic that we’ve been facing in our community, our state and in our nation is definitely a public health concern,” Phillips said. “And so when we can take these – you know, it may seem like such a small strategy – but when we can take these small strategies and take the small steps, it really does help create that bigger change.”
By cleaning out medicine cabinets and disposing of pills properly, residents will make it less likely that those drugs are abused. Captain Jay Sheffer, of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office, said prescription medicine is often one of the first things criminals will take after breaking into a residence.
“With the drug epidemic we have nationwide, if we have any type of burglary, usually that’s something people are missing,” Sheffer said. “You’ll notice that people have rifled through their medicine cabinet.”
Sheffer said addicts will often steal drugs to either sell or use themselves. Painkillers such as oxycodone seem to be a highly sought-after cabinet item, he added.
The pills that were turned in Saturday will be incinerated at one of two locations – the sheriff’s office will take its drugs to the Central Ohio Drug Enforcement Task Force (Newark), while the three police departments involved will take theirs to the Mansfield DEA office.
“You can’t just flush them down the toilet, it’s just not healthy for the environment,” said Beth Marti, detective sergeant at the Mount Vernon Police Department. “So we give them a resource to take this stuff, and then we can dispose of it. And we have lots of people that thank us because they didn’t know what to do with their unwanted prescriptions.”
Between the spring and fall collection sessions, Drug Take Back Day pulled nearly 300 pounds of medication off of county streets this year (142 pounds were collected in April). Of the 129 pounds collected Saturday, 85 came from the Health Department’s station, 16 were collected at Centerburg and 14 came from both Fredericktown and Danville, respectively.
Kyle Johnson, a Fredericktown Police Department lieutenant who witnessed the collection on Saturday, was floored by the amount of drugs collected across the county within the span of just four hours.
“What amazes me is the number of pounds that we collect when we do one of these. I’m always shocked by the amount of unused and unwanted medication that’s out there,” Johnson said. “That’s a huge amount that’s not out on the streets for illicit use now.”
Marti, who worked the event at the Health Department on Saturday, said people of all age ranges came in to drop off medication.
Sheffer noted that collection amounts at certain locations vary by session, as Danville collected just eight pounds in April but had 14 pounds in October. Meanwhile, Fredericktown collected 22 pounds in April but had only 14 pounds on Saturday.
Despite this minor fluctuation, Phillips said the total amount has consistently hovered around the 100-115 pound range over the last three years. KSAAT promotes the designated drop-off days with fliers, as well as online and newspaper advertisements.
For those who would still like to safely dispose of unwanted medication but could not attend Saturday’s event, Phillips recommends using one of the county’s three 24/7 drop-off locations. There is one at the sheriff’s office, one at the Mount Vernon Police Department and one at the Fredericktown Police Department. All medication will be kept anonymous, even if pills are left in the bottle.
Each drop-box is located in the lobby of its respective facility, so that residents can drop medication off without having to enter through lobby doors.
Sheffer has operated the drop-off location at the sheriff’s office since 2013. He said the amount of pills collected has increased each year – he collected 148 pounds in 2013, and last year he collected 522. He said the sheriff’s office collects approximately 10 pounds of medicine per week, and that amount does not include bottles, wrappers or packaging – only pills.
“So you can imagine how much we’re talking about as far as pills go,” Sheffer said. “The public, they are using it. So it’s a good thing we’re getting it out of the homes, potentially off of the streets.”
For those who are homebound or unable to make it to a drop-off location, Phillips recommends disposing of pills after mixing them with kitty litter or coffee grounds. When pills are mixed with either of those two substances, the medicine begins to decompose and it “becomes less appealing,” Phillips said.
The Health Department also has Deterra bags, which are drug deactivation bags designed to break down medicine. Once the pills are placed in the bag and it is filled with water, the chemicals will break down the medicine and remove its opioid contents, making it safe to dispose of in a trash can. The department provides Deterra bags, which can hold up to 45 pills, free of charge.
While those options are available year-round, Phillips still believes it is important to have Take Back Days like the one KSAAT hosted on Saturday. She said doing so can help change the community’s mindset when it comes to medicine disposal, which is crucial in the effort to end the opioid epidemic.
“When we’re making it more of a norm that we don’t stash away our medicine, that when we’re done using it, we get rid of it, and we get rid of it in a safe, healthy and proper way, we’re just kind of changing the community norm and changing the concept of, ‘It’s OK that we don’t keep all of the pills,’” Phillips said.
“Because, as law enforcement stated, that is a concern and it is a perfect opportunity for crimes to happen as well. So when we can clean out our medicine cabinets, we’re just kind of laying the building blocks to create that healthier environment that we all live in.”
