National Take Back Day Collects 1.5 Tons of Medicines
September 25 was National Take Back Day, and it looks like the DEA was able to gather quite a load-ful of prescription drugs – all of 1½ tons, according to a feature by Houston Chronicle’s Cindy George.
That’s a whole lot of drugs kept out of homes, and finally disposed of properly – instead of just sitting on shelves, being flushed down the toilet – or abused.
The feature showed a photo of a collection site in Pasadena, where Stephanie Eguia and Sanjay Gupta were shown receiving a bag of prescription drugs from 57-year-old Debbie Styron, who didn’t even need to get down from her car.
At the Spring Branch campus of the Houston Community College, officers wearing surgical gloves received the unwanted drugs. Robin Green had two 13-gallon bags full of pills and creams, something that would have meant trouble for him on any other day, as pointed out by George. On this day, however, having that many drugs on you is okay. Green, an engineer, shared where the huge stash of drugs was from: “This is from my house and mostly from my mother’s house… From her house, it’s probably at least 10 years’ worth. My mother’s 86, so she keeps a lot of stuff.”
Not everyone seemed to be impressed with the effort, though; one reader, carrying the name Oaxaca, commented: “What a waste of taxpayer money. You can flush your unused pills folks.” But that is just one opinion, and reader aurum79 applauded the effort by writing that aside from preventing prescription drug abuse, the effort is also a great contribution towards saving the environment: “Kudos to government, which protects all of us. I urge more funds for these kind of programs.”
Tags: prescription drugs, prescription drugs collection, prescription drugs take back
