Drug take back set for April 28
Date: 4/17/2012
April 16, 2012By Chris Maza
chrism@thereminder.comLONGMEADOW — The Longmeadow Police Department will host a drug take back event on April 28.
The event, which will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the police garage behind town hall, is sponsored by the Longmeadow Medical Reserve Corps and the Board of Health in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice's Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA] and will provide residents the opportunity to dispose of prescription drugs and narcotics.
"People will have the chance to safely get rid of any pills they have that they no longer need or use in a no questions asked environment," Police Chief Robert Siano said. "People can dispose of their drugs without having to answer to what they have, how much they have or where they got it."
Siano explained that the drugs collected would be disposed of in an environmentally conscious manner.
"The DEA started this program because in the past they told people to flush them down the toilet until they discovered that they were finding a lot of narcotics ending up in fresh water supplies," he said. "The drugs we collect will be handed off to the DEA and they will be burned at a very high temperature."
In addition to the environment, the event promotes safety for those disposing of the drugs.
"Very often people have drugs sitting around their house that they either don't use or have expired," he said. "Many times the elderly take pills out of the bottles and forget which ones are which."
Acceptable drugs are limited to those in pill form, Siano added.
"The DEA will not accept any liquids and won't take any sharps, like syringes, because of the risk of someone getting pricked or scraped," he said. "We also won't accept any chemotherapy drugs or other radiological substances."
