Brick Teens Help Police Curb Availability Of Prescription Medications

(Photos show the Lead & Seed team members from Veterans Memorial and Lake Riviera middle schools conducting the prescription medication collections, and the secure box used to hold them. Credits: Brick Township Police Department)

Efforts to removed unneeded and expired prescription drugs from the community through collections netted 42.6 pounds of pills in January, Brick Township police said recently.

In conjunction with the Brick Township Schools’ Lead & Seed program, which helps teens become peer leaders in the effort to encourage youth to stay away from drugs and alcohol, prescription collections were conducted at the Greenbriar and Lions Head development clubhouses on Jan. 24 and 31.

Students from Lake Riviera and Veterans Memorial middle schools, where the Lead & Seed program operates, were assisted by Officer Tara Schinder and Officer John Alexander from the Community Policing Division. The pair also are the D.A.R.E. officers in the school district.

The Lead and Seed program is a youth-empowered, adult supported, environmental approach to drug prevention for middle school age children.

Police departments statewide have begun installing Project Medicine Drop dropboxes where residents discard unneeded and/or expired prescription medication, which helps prevent those drugs from winding up in the hands of teenagers experimenting or in the hands of drug dealers and addicts. Prescription medications have become a critical problem in the area of drug abuse, particularly opiate-based painkillers.