By Wayne Gates

When a loved one dies or someone simply begins to feel better, many prescription drugs go unused, forgotten in medicine cabinets.

Some of those drugs are opiates that could be a target for thieves or other drugs that are dangerous for children to get ahold of.

To help prevent that from happening, the Drug Enforcement Administration sponsors two days a year as National Drug Take Back Initiative days, with one of them coming up October 27.

From 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., residents can drop off unused medication at the Brown County Sheriff’s Office in Georgetown or at Orscheln and Kroger in Mt. Orab.

“You pull up to the box and drop the medication in. There are no questions asked. We will take any medication as long as it’s dry, in pill form or powder. We don’t take hypodermic syringes or liquids because it all has to be incinerated,” said Brown County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Chris Hodges.

According to the DEA, over six million Americans misuse prescription drug every year.

“The intent of this is to get unused medication out of people’s houses so that there are less burglaries from people trying to break in and get them,” said Hodges

“It also stops people from flushing them down the toilet which is not the proper way to dispose of your medication.”

According to the DEA, 40,509 pounds of prescription drugs were taken back in Ohio in April of this year. Since the National Take Back Day initiative started, 407,859 pounds have been taken back in the state.

Hodges said that the two drug take back days come in handy for the sheriff’s office, where a drug dropoff box is available to the public year round.

“Agencies like us that have drop boxes at their offices are required to pay a disposal fee to empty them. You have to pay incinerator companies and others to come and take the medications away and destroy them. On these two National Drug Take Back Initiative days, the DEA will pay for the disposal costs.”

Hodges said that the awareness and use of the local boxes seems to be growing.

“The first time we participated in this was the fall of 2017. We collected approximately 14 pounds of unused prescription medication. We did it again in April of 2018 and collected a little over 30 pounds.”

Hodges said that since April, about 40 pounds worth of drugs have been dropped off at the sheriff’s office.

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