Drop off your expired medications at Palmdale Sheriff ’s Station

PALMDALE — Reserve deputies at the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Palmdale Station will conduct a drug take-back event on Wednesday.

The Safe Drug Drop-off Program will be from 9 a.m. to noon in the front lobby. It will provide a safe way for the public to dispose of any expired or unused medication and/or narcotics.

The event is held on the first Wednesday of every month, from 9 a.m. to noon.

Those who are unable to drop their drugs off on Wednesday will not have another opportunity to do so until September because there will be no collection day in August.

The event is for medication only, so no needles or sharp objects will be collected. Commercial amounts of medication and/ or narcotics also will not be accepted.

The program, which has operated since 2009, gives residents the opportunity to safely and anonymously dispose of their unwanted prescriptions.

“Our intentions are not to make arrests,” Palmdale Station Deputy Ronald Sneed said in a previous Antelope Valley Press report on the collection event.

This safe solution is meant to help prevent children or others from accessing these medications and using them inappropriately, selling them or giving them to others for illegal and unintended uses, the AVP report said.

“We want to safely remove expired meds and prescriptions off the street so they don’t fall into the wrong hands,” Sneed said.

The program is also designed so medications can be disposed of properly and not flushed down toilets or put down sinks, which can have an adverse impact on aquatic wildlife.

Wastewater treatment plants are not able to test or treat for pharmaceuticals and the drugs end up in rivers, streams, lakes, groundwater systems and oceans, according to a document from the Sheriff ’s Department.

Lancaster Station does not participate in the Safe Drug Drop-off program.