By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Any old prescription drugs you may have around your home can be gotten rid of this weekend during a nationwide event.
Captain of the Buchanan County Drug Strike Force Shawn Collie says it's important to get rid of these drugs safely for the environment
"When you have people that are just flushing prescription medication down the toilet that's getting into the waterways," Collie tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "And the pollution or just throwing it away gets into the soil and the waterways."
Collie says the other part has to do with the ongoing problem of overdosing and drug abuse
"So, our goals are to get the prescription medications that are not being used out of the homes and off of the streets and away from our youth who may, it may be an accidental overdose, or it could be somebody who is experimenting with prescription medications."
Collie says the factor of getting it out of the home is huge for the strike force when it comes to drug addiction issues.
Collie says it's important to dispose of old medication, because you never know the effect it has
"If it's a year or two later if you're taking different medications, you never know the effect that that original prescription that's now expired, you know what kind of effect is that going to have when you're combining new medications," Collie says.
Collie says it's also just the fact that as long as it stays in a cabinet, its more easily accessible
"To people who may be abusing medication like that and it's making it available, or if you have that youth that's looking to or experimenting with certain things," Collie says.
Drug Take Back Day will be held tomorrow in St. Joseph in the East Hills Mall parking lot from 10am to 2pm.
Around 35,000 young children end up in the emergency room each year because they gained access to unsecured medicines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Collie says that is a problem his team also sees locally.
"Unfortunately, we're seeing more experimenting with different types of drugs at younger ages," Collie explains. "But, even during the years that I've been here with the strike force, we've seen even accidental drug overdoses with young children or even infant age where there may be a pill that fell on the floor or something that's accessible."
Collie says the strike force has seen overdose deaths from those situations and hopes that Drug Take Back Day tomorrow can help prevent that.
If you miss the event, you can bring expired medication ot the Law Enforcement center in downtown St. Joseph