Drug Take Back Day Scheduled for April 28 Around New City

NEW CITY, NY — Is your medicine cabinet full of expired drugs or medications you no longer use? Rockland officials are once again offering residents the opportunity to empty their medicine cabinets of unused prescription drugs before they fall into the wrong hands or add to the stew of discarded pharmaceuticals found dissolved throughout the Hudson River.

Another National Prescription Drug Take Back Day will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 28 at the pharmacies listed below.

“This is an easy way to get rid of medications you no longer need so that they don’t fall into the wrong hands,” County Executive Ed Day announced. “Disposing of medications you no longer need by handing them over to the proper authorities also protects the environment by keeping prescription drugs out of our water supply.”

The event is part of the National Drug Take Back day initiated by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. The local event has been organized by Day and the Rockland County Department of Mental Health under the direction of Commissioner Michael Leitzes along with police in Clarkstown, Haverstraw, Spring Valley and the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department.

Residents will be able to bring medications to the following locations where police along with volunteer community agencies will be on hand to take the substances, no questions asked, and dispose of them in an environmentally safe way.

• New City: CVS Pharmacy, 280 South Main Street
• Bardonia: CVS Pharmacy, 300 Route 304
• Garnerville: CVS Pharmacy, 12 West Ramapo Road
• Spring Valley: Walgreens, 208 East Route 59
• Nyack: Walgreens, 16 Route 59

This initiative addresses a couple of vital public safety and public health issues.

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. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows year after year that the majority of misused and abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including someone else’s medication being stolen 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.

In a new study, researchers mapped out a stew of discarded pharmaceuticals dissolved throughout the Hudson River. Scientists based at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory say that in some places, levels may be high enough to affect aquatic life.

The medications — antibiotics, cholesterol and blood-pressure meds, acetaminophen and a dozen more — are believed to enter the river through sewage outfalls after people excrete unmetabolized doses, or when they flush unused pills or dump medicine down the drain.

Riverkeeper helped researchers test the water in 2016. They used the Ossining-based environmental watchdog's vessel to sample 72 sites along the river twice each, in May and July. Particularly high levels were found at the sewage outfalls in Orangetown in Rockland County, Yonkers in Westchester County, and Kingston in Ulster County.

The Drug Take Back was extremely successful last October, with more than 162 New York Police Departments participating at 242 sites and collecting almost 38,000 pounds of drugs. I hope all Rockland citizens can participate in this important initiative.

For more information about the disposal of prescription drugs or about National Drug Take Back Day events visit the DEA Office of Diversion Control website.

Image via Shutterstock

SEE:

Researchers Map High Levels of Drugs in The Hudson River