BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – A day that comes twice a year, National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day will be held Saturday, April 30.
To help tackle the overdose epidemic that affects the country, the national day is designed for the public to gather up their unused prescription medication and turn it into their local police and sheriff’s departments, or drug prevention groups.
The drugs will then be sent off to the DEA to be incinerated. It’s an effort that helps to prevent the opioid problem before it can ever start.
“It is important to keep unwanted or outdated prescriptions out of your home,” says a Raleigh County Prevention Coalition member, Stephanie French. “One, it’s a hazard to children, also it can make you a victim to a crime of people wanting prescriptions and looking for them.”
Here locally, the Raleigh County Prevention Coalition is partnering up with the Commission on Aging and the Beckley Police Department to host a drug take-back event.
They encourage residents of the Beckley and surrounding communities to bring in their prescription drugs that day to help stop the hazard of having them lying around and to help create a safer place to live.
“We need to have a safer community, so that’s why we advise people to bring in their prescriptions,” says French. “We dispose of them safely with the DEA. It also keeps them out of our landfills, because animals can get to them and it can harm our animals. It’s not safe for the water system either when people flush the prescriptions too.”
The event will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Saturday at the Raleigh County Commission on Aging. Any liquids or syringes will not be accepted.
A drug take-back event will also be held at the Fayetteville Sheriff’s Office in Fayette County from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Sheriff’s Department asks that people empty all pills into a plastic bag and dispose of the pill bottle upon arrival.
