Crime & Safety

Drug Take Back Initiative Date Announced in Upper St. Clair

Have unwanted or expired medication in your home? Let the Upper St. Clair Police Department dispose of the stuff for you. Here's how.

The Upper St. Clair Police Department is again participating in The National Drug Take Back Initiative—and the date to drop off your unwanted and expired medications is quickly approaching.

The next collection date is Saturday, Sept. 29 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The police department, USC Youth Steering Committee and the Drug Enforcement Administration are teaming up to give the public yet another opportunity to prevent pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused and unwanted prescription drugs. 

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All residents must do is bring their medications for disposal to the USC Police Station. The service is free and anonymous—no questions asked.

In April, Americans turned in 552,161pounds—276 tons—of prescription drugs at over 5,600 sites operated by the DEA and nearly 5,659 state and local law enforcement partners. In its four previous Take Back events, DEA and its partners took in almost a million pounds—nearly 774 tons—of pills. 

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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.

Four days after the first event, Congress passed the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010, which amends the Controlled Substances Act to allow an “ultimate user” of controlled substance medications to dispose of them by delivering them to entities authorized by the Attorney General to accept them.

The act also allows the attorney general to authorize long-term care facilities to dispose of their residents’ controlled substances in certain instances.

DEA is drafting regulations to implement the act, a process that can take as long as 24 months.

Until new regulations are in place, local law enforcement agencies—like the USC Police and Youth Steering Committee—will continue to hold prescription drug take-back events every few months.


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