National Drug Take Back Day is Saturday

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Saturday, October 26, is National Drug Take Back Day. This is a great opportunity to clean out your medicine cabinet.

“Everyone, including me, probably has something in their medicine cabinet that they haven’t used in a while. Just as you clean out your pantry and throw out expired items, don’t leave cans of expired items in there; it just takes up space. Go through your medicine cabinet. Clear it out. Get expired stuff, stuff you don’t use. Bring it back,” said Tom Mengwasser, pharmacist at Alps Pharmacy.

It’s simple. There are three locations in Springfield and others around the Ozarks. In Springfield you can go to CoxHealth, Sam’s Club or the Library Station on the Kansas Expressway.

You can bring almost any medicine and they will send it away and destroy it.

“All tablets, capsules, most liquids, just bring everything with you. No aerosols like inhalers or similar because they contain chemicals that we cannot handle. And anything that has to do with blood, needles, syringes, anything like that, we can’t deal with that either, because there are just all sorts of rules and stuff if you go through these lines. “Tablets, capsules, liquids – all of these are very easy to dispose of,” said Mengwasser.

Mengwasser says this is a better way to get rid of medications than flushing them away. You should never flush your medications, otherwise they may end up in the water supply.

“If you throw this in the toilet you might think it’s gone, but it’s still floating in the water somewhere. Someone drinks a little fentanyl or a dog licks it up. It won’t be good. So it’s better to be safe than sorry. There are better ways to dispose of medicines,” Mengwasser said.

If you can’t make it to medicine take-back day, many pharmacies have a disposal box that you can use at any time.

Mengwasser says this is a great way to combat the drug or opioid crisis in the United States. The DEA says it disposed of over 300 tons of drugs last Drug Take Back Day.

“The opioid pandemic, where people are taking their grandma’s painkillers and selling them or taking them themselves. There’s data that shows they did a study here in Greene County about three or four years ago that showed it was like, “I want to.” Let’s say 10 to 14 percent of sixth and eighth graders had indicated that they had similar exposure to prescription drugs, and then they did the study again a few years ago after we did drug withdrawals and things like that, and that was drastically reduced. I mean, almost halved,” Mengwasser said.

You can find a local drop-off point here. Drug Take Back Day takes place anywhere in the Ozarks on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

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