On April 29, 2017, The Scott County partnership in cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration, ScottCounty Sheriff’s Office and Scottsburg Police gave the public an opportunity to help in preventing prescription drug abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous, unused and unwanted prescription drugs.
Citizens brought numerous prescription medications and dropped them off for disposal at the drug drop location which was set up at Wal-Mart in Scottsburg Indiana.
72.8 lbs of prescription medications were collected locally and will be disposed of.
There were more than 4,000 community partners at almost 5,200 collection sites nationwide. Over the life of the program, 7.1 million pounds (more than 3,500 tons) of prescription drugs have been removed from medicine cabinets, kitchen drawers, and nightstands by citizens around the country.
“Take back programs offer a safe, simple, and anonymous way to keep dangerous prescription drugs out of the wrong hands and prevent substance abuse,” said Chuck Rosenberg, Acting DEA Administrator.
Unused medicines in the home are a problem because the majority of the 6.4 million Americans who abused CPDs in 2015, including the almost 4 million who abused prescription painkillers, say they obtained those drugs from friends and family, including from a home medicine cabinet, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health released last month. Some painkiller abusers move on to heroin: Four out of five new heroin users started with painkillers. Almost 30,000 people—78 a day—died from overdosing on these painkillers or heroin in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the last two years since new regulations made the disposal of CPDs easier for patients and their caregivers, many law enforcement agencies, pharmacies, hospitals, and clinics have begun continuous collection of these medications.
