Prescription drug take back event in Sikeston Saturday

SIKESTON, Mo. -- The Sikeston Department of Public Safety and Sikeston pharmacies will take part in the Drug Enforcement Agency's first ever nationwide "drug take-back" Saturday, the Sikeston Standard Democrat reported.

"It's a nationwide effort to get all of the old prescriptions turned in, hopefully, and disposed of properly," said DPS Capt. Mark Crocker.

Unused, unwanted and expired prescription medications are a public safety issue leading to accidental poisoning, overdose and abuse, according to a news release from Sgt. Jim McMillen, public information officer for DPS.

This is an opportunity to drop medications off conveniently and, according to the news release, free and anonymously -- no questions asked.

Tablets, capsules and other solid dosage forms will be collected at sites in communities around the nation. Intravenous solutions, injectables and syringes will not be accepted, however.

For DPS, this is an important opportunity to keep prescription drugs sought after for recreational use from hitting the streets.

"Prescription drug abuse is rampant. It ranks up there with other narcotics such as cocaine and marijuana," McMillen said. "It's a problem everywhere; we're no different than everywhere else."

The 2008 Partnership Attitude Tracking Survey showed that the majority of teenagers using prescription drugs got them from family and friends, including from their home medicine cabinets, according to the news release.

In Sikeston, DPS officials will have a collection site operating from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. on the parking lot of the old Storey's Marketplace at 1102 South Main.

"I know several of the pharmacies in town are also participating in it," Crocker said.

"I think its an excellent interagency cooperative effort," said Ernie Moxey, pharmacist and owner of the Medicine Shoppe at the corner of South Main and Virginia. "I hope we can do it more often."

The Medicine Shoppe will collect medications from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. Saturday.

For this one-day collection effort, "the DEA has provided a secure receptacle," Moxey said. Following the collection period, law enforcement will come and pick up the medications.

Moxey encouraged area residents to take advantage of this convenient opportunity to bring in "subpotent or possibly dangerous medications -- anything that is not being used currently or that has been sitting around. Things get old, lose their potency, or people forget what they're used for."

Flushing medications down the toilet or tossing them into to the trash "could cause some environmental hazards," McMillen said. "We're trying to cut that down as much as possible."

If flushed, "it could end up in the fresh water supply," he said. "With as much medication as is prescribed nowadays, it adds up."

In addition to the risk that medications thrown into the trash could be spotted and found, Moxey pointed out that trash ultimately ends up in landfills and could possibly end up contaminating the water supply there.

"We don't want it out in the trash," McMillen agreed. "We want to make sure it is incinerated and destroyed properly."

As pharmacies are not allowed to take back prescription medications under normal circumstances, Moxey would like to see the DEA loosen restrictions so they are able to take back medications on a more regular basis.

In the meantime, his pharmacy has participated in an ongoing program since February by which medications can be mailed to a secure facility in Texas to be destroyed.

"They're logged in and incinerated," Moxey said. "It's a postage-paid program -- the only program I'm aware of like that."

Pertinent address:

1102 South Main, Sikeston, MO