Framingham Police Take Back Unwanted Prescription Drugs on Saturday

FRAMINGHAM - Do you have some old bottles of prescription medicine hiding in the back of your medicine cabinet you no longer use? Wonder what to do with them so they don't pollute the environment or hurt others? On Saturday April 29 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. the Framingham Police Department in concert with the Medical Reserve Corps will give the public an opportunity to prevent pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs.

Bring your pills, patches, liquids or ointments for disposal to 1 William Welch Way (inside the police Department lobby). The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked.

Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse, according to experts. 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.

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And it's coming to light that flushing old medicine down the toilet or throwing them in the trash both pose potential safety and health hazards.

The drugs collected from the event are then rendered “non-retrievable” according to the DEA. In 2014, the DEA released specific rules for how to dispose of drugs collected at these events: incineration and dissolving a drug into a solution and is rendered unusable.

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