Drug take-back day Oct. 29
Oct. 17—A number of locations around Ashtabula County will be participating in National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.
The event is sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, and is intended to encourage members of the public to remove unneeded medications from their homes in order to prevent medication misuse and opioid addiction, according to the DEA's website.
Three locations in Ashtabula County are participating in the event, according to the DEA's website.
University Hospitals locations in Conneaut and Geneva will be participating in the event.
"Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to abuse," Champ Burgess, chief pharmacy officer at UH, said in a press release. "Preventing substance misuse and overdose deaths are chief among Northeast Ohio's most pressing public health needs."
Prescription and over-the-counter medications will be accepted at the event, along with liquid medication in bottles smaller than four ounces, according to the press release. If a person has liquid medication to donate, they are asked to package the bottles in sealable baggies.
Illegal drugs, needles syringes and sharps containers, medical devices and batteries, aerosol cans and inhalers, mercury-containing devices, radiopharmaceuticals and liquid chemo agents will not be accepted, according to the press release.
The event will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Oct. 29.
The UH Conneaut drop-off location will be at the Route 20 entrance under the canopy, and at UH Geneva, the drop-off location will be at the pharmacy driveway turn-around near the main entrance.
The Andover Police Department will also participate.
Andover Police Chief Christopher Baker said the department has a collections box in the lobby year-round, but the take-back day events bring more attention to it.
"They can bring it over that day or any other day," Baker said.
The Andover Police Department's collection site averages about 60 pounds of prescription drugs turned in per year, Baker said.
