DEA RX Take-back Day nets hundreds of prescriptions

Imagine holding open a large – 30-gallon – trash bag as people drop old prescription drugs into it. The bag will hold hundreds of pill bottles.

That’s what was collected recently in a single day at the Catoosa County Sheriff’s Department. April 28 was DEA RX Take-back Day in Catoosa County and across the state – a day when people are encouraged to take their old prescriptions to an official drop box, usually located at a sheriff’s department or police station, and drop them in to be disposed of safely.

“There are two takeback days a year in Georgia,” says William Catoosa Prevention Initiative makes medication collection bags (right) available to real estate agents and home owners to help keep prescriptions out of the hands of people who go to open houses and estate sales searching for drugs.

Mathew, project coordinator with Catoosa Prevention Initiative (CaPI), a project of the Catoosa County Family Collaborative, “but we only had the funds to promote one of them in Catoosa County.” Mathew says he chose the spring date because he felt that was a time of year people were recovered from winter illnesses and probably had leftover drugs.

While the promoted events occur only once a year in Northwest Georgia, the drop boxes are available all year long, one at the Catoosa County Sheriff’s

Department that’s available 24/7 and one at the Rossville Police Department, available Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“This year we had people drop off 21 pounds of prescriptions in Catoosa County on take-back day,” says Mathew, “compared to nine pounds last year.” Mathew says that’s because this year the event was advertised much more heavily, thanks to a $6,000 grant from the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. The grant enabled CaPI to advertise in

newspapers and on the three major TV stations in the area.

“All the schools in Catoosa County also advertised the event on their marquees,” says Mathew. “The advantage to the dropoff locations is that it gets drugs out of homes where children or others might misuse them and keeps them out of landfills.”

Across the state of Georgia, the event netted 9,633 pounds of prescription drugs, or around 459 large trash bags full. Once the drugs are collected, they are incinerated in a machine referred to as a Drug Terminator.

CaPI also makes small drug bags available, at no cost, for real estate agents and home owners to use to collect prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs and keep them safe during open houses, estate sales or other events. “A homeowner can toss their prescriptions into a bag and take them with them if their house is going to be shown,” says Mathew.

Anyone interested in getting some of the bags can call Catoosa Prevention Initiative at 706-935-5018.