by Mary Rupert
Prescription drug takeback day on Saturday was successful, with about 500 pounds of medications taken to sites for disposal.
Andrica Wilcoxen, Division of Student Services outreach and prevention coordinator at Kansas City Kansas Community College, said the event held Saturday involved law enforcement in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties as well as local pharmacies. Ten local pharmacies and the Argentine Library participated in the event, she said.
Wilcoxen said the event has been held for the past four years and has been successful in getting unused, expired medications out of cabinets and potentially off the streets.
“The federal government saw it was working and passed a law saying pharmacies are required to have some kind of ongoing takeback,” Wilcoxen said.
However, no protocol was specified in how that would happen, and so there is currently an effort to create a protocol for Wyandotte County, she said.
Wilcoxen said she believes it is important to clean out old medications from cabinets, and she also discourages people from throwing old medicines in the trash or flushing them down the toilet.
Typically, some people put old medications in used coffee grounds and throw it away, causing it to disintegrate. But it still goes into the ground and eventually back into the environment, she said.
She also has talked with a person involved with water systems in another county who said that the practice of flushing away old medicines is affecting the water supply. It will affect people in the future, she added.
Those methods of disposal are not effective, and neither is just keeping the expired medication in the medicine cabinet, she added.
“I would hate to be that person who had it in my cabinet because I neglected to take inventory,” Wilcoxen said. “Now my child is at risk or my child’s friend is at risk.”
She added she has heard that people may be breaking into homes, not for a flat-screen television, but for medications that they might be able to sell for $80 per gram, more than what they could get for television sets.
She said that people who still have medications in their cabinets that they need to dispose of should visit the website DEA.gov to get accurate information on how to properly dispose of them.
In conjunction with the drug takeback day, those who brought back medications for disposal were given Vials for Life, a container that included a paper that persons may fill out with their information and medications, then put back into the vial and leave in their refrigerator.
Then emergency medical workers could later find the information about what medications a patient is taking if they are called to the home. Livable Neighborhoods and Shepherd’s Center were partners in the Vials for Life program, she said.
