Prescription drug take back box dedication

A dedication ceremony for the new City of Daleville Prescription Drug Take Back Box was held at the regular meeting of the Daleville City Council on Tuesday, Nov. 5. Daleville Police Captain Brian Lusher presented the box to the council and gave a brief description of the purpose of the program.

“I think it is a really good thing. Unfortunately, we deal with a whole lot of people whose loved ones are deceased. We always have questions about what to do with the medication of lost loved ones,” Lusher said. “We have never really had an answer for them. SpectraCare would come over here every once in a while and do a community thing. Now the public does not have to wait for a special community event, because this box is available to the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the lobby of the police department.”

Lusher said that the box has been available in the police department for approximately three weeks and already an estimated 25 pounds of prescription drugs have been turned in. Lusher noted that the box is under 24-hour a day surveillance in the lobby of the police department.

The box is provided by Alabama Cooperative Extension System, SpectraCare Health Systems and the Daleville Police Department.

Phillip Carter, Urban Regional Extension agent for ACES, expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to place the box in a location that is accessible 24 hours a day.

“On behalf of Alabama Cooperative Extension Service and SpectraCare we really appreciate the opportunity to be able to put this box here. This makes eight boxes now in the Wiregrass area including Troy, Eufaula, Geneva, Slocomb, Ozark, Dothan and the Dale County Sheriff’s Office,” Carter said. “We are really trying to get these boxes out there, because accessibility to these prescription drugs is a whole lot easier now. It seems like everybody has painkillers, opioids, in their homes. Nation-wide it is an opioid epidemic right now.”

Carter said his role at ACES deals with the environmental aspect of prescription drugs getting into bodies of water and otherwise affecting the environment.

“I deal more with the environmental science side of it. My background is environmental science with extension because with these drugs getting in our bodies of water and into our water tables and our drinking water the research is showing some really weird stuff with aquatic life. So, there is an environmental impact but of course more importantly the human aspect as well.”

According to Carter, most people never give much thought about the negative environmental impacts resulting from flushing medicines down the toilet or just throwing them in the trash. Waste water treatment plants are unable to remove pharmaceuticals so they are discharged into our local bodies of water to harm aquatic and animal life. They can also enter into the groundwater that is consumed for drinking water.

“The drug boxes are another major tool to combat the negative environmental and human health impacts. The drug take back boxes are solely in the possession of the law enforcement agencies and they have the responsibility to weigh the collected items quarterly to report to ACES and SpectraCare Health Systems,” Carter said. “Since the drug boxes are funded by the Synergistic Efforts to Reduce Pharmaceuticals in the Environment grant through USDA, the weights are sent to the federal government for data collection and analysis.”

Rakia Leggett, prevention specialist with SpectraCare, told the board about what happens to the prescription medicines after they are turned in and weighed.

“Once the prescription drugs have been collected in the box and weighed they will be destroyed,” Leggett said. “We have purchased a drug terminator for the Dale County Sheriff’s Office. It looks like a barrel. The pills are placed inside and you heat it up and it turns the medication to ashes. So the pills will never be able to be retrieved again.”

Anyone interested in dropping off prescription medication, over the counter medication, vitamins, pet medicines, medicated ointments and lotions, inhalers and medicine samples can do so in the prescription drug take back box located in the lobby of the Daleville Police Department at 730 South Daleville Avenue. Items that are not accepted are needles/lancets/syringes; thermometers; aerosol cans; empty containers; bloody or infectious waste; personal care products; hydrogen peroxide; and business waste.