Millburn Police Want Leftover, Unused Prescription Drugs

Do you have prescription medicine in your cabinet you're no longer using? The Millburn Police Department is proving the opportunity for residents to dispose of those old, unused medications as part of Operation Take Back New Jersey.

The disposal day will be held on Sept. 25 at 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at police headquarters on Essex Street. The event provides residents an opportunity to anonymously dispose of unused, unwanted and expired medicine. The effort is similar to Operation Medicine Cabinet, which was held in November 2009.

This statewide effort, with the majority of New Jersey police departments participating, is spearheaded by the Drug Enforcement Administration's New Jersey Division, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police, the NY/NJ HIDTA, and New Jersey National Guard.

"Last year New Jersey opened its medicine cabinets and we collected over 9,000 pounds of medicine that was unwanted," said John G. McCabe, Jr., Acting Special Agent in Charge of the DEA New Jersey Division, in a press release. "This year we are very excited about the continued support brought on by Operation Take Back New Jersey and we hope all citizens will take time to eliminate any and all medicines that are not suitable for proper medical use. The more public attention we bring to this issue, the more we trust that people will become educated on the dangers of prescription drug abuse."

"Each year, experts say, a growing number of teenagers quietly turn to a seemingly unlikely source to score drugs — their parents' medicine cabinets," the Operation Take Back New Jersey website states. The most recent studies by Monitoring the Future at University of Michigan between 1997 and 2007 showed the number of people admitted for prescription painkiller treatment increased more than 400 percent, according to the release. In addition, between 2004 and 2008, the number of visits to hospital emergency departments involving the non-medical use of narcotic painkillers increased 111 percent.

Millburn police participated in Operation Medicine Cabinet a year ago and collected enough medication to fill several large boxes.