UPPER
DARBY TAKING BACK UNWANTED PRESCRIPTION DRUGS APRIL 28 AT Upper Darby
High School 601 Lansdowne Ave. , Upper Darby , PA
Press Release from Holcomb Behavioral Health Systems Prevention Department
Last
October, Americans turned in 377,080 pounds—188.5 tons—of prescription drugs at
over 5,300 sites operated by the DEA and nearly 4,000 state and local law
enforcement partners. In its three
previous Take Back events, DEA and its partners took in almost a million
pounds—nearly 500 tons—of pills.
This
initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue. Medicines that languish in home cabinets are
highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug
abuse in the U.S. 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,
Americans are now advised that their usual methods for disposing of unused
medicines—flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash—both pose
potential safety and health hazards.
Four days after the first
event, 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. DEA is
drafting regulations to implement the Act, a process that can take as long as
24 months. Until new regulations are in
place, local law enforcement agencies like Upper Darby Township
