On Saturday, April 29, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. the Palo Alto County Sheriff’s Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will give the public its 13th opportunity in 7 years to prevent pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs. Bring your pills for disposal to the Palo Alto County Sheriff’s Office at 2001 11th Street in Emmetsburg. (The DEA cannot accept liquids or needles or sharps, only pills or patches.) The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked.
Last October, Americans turned in 366 tons (over 730,000 pounds) of prescription drugs at almost 5,200 sites operated by the DEA and more than 4,000 of its state and local law enforcement partners. Overall, in its 12 previous Take Back events, DEA and its partners have taken in over 7.1 million pounds—more than 3,500 tons—of pills.
The Palo Alto County Sheriff’s Office collected 22lbs of medications in October of 2016. Those drugs were sent to the DEA to be incinerated. In all we have collected 132 lbs of drugs over the past 9 collection events. We will be conducting Deputy testing this date so we will not be able to have personnel standing by, but you can still drop off your medications at the Sheriff’s Office lobby and place them in the white medications box. This box resembles an upright mailbox and is always accessible to everyone 365 days a year.
This initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue. Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs. Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet. In addition, Americans are now advised that their usual methods for disposing of unused medicines—flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash—both pose potential safety and health hazards.
If you have medications and are not able to drop them off yourself, please call 712-852-3535 and ask for Sheriff Lynn J Schultes to make arrangements for your medications to be picked up.
Thank you to those who utilize this method of medication disposal. Please tell a friend about this program and bring them with you.
For more information about the disposal of prescription drugs or about the April 29 Take Back Day event, go to the DEA Diversion website .