Even before the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration could finish tallying the total number of prescription drugs collected in the nation’s first-ever Drug Take-Back Day, local and state law enforcement officials in the region were calling the effort a success.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced his state’s total on Friday — 5,182 pounds, or more than two tons, of expired or unwanted prescription drugs were turned in to local authorities on Sept. 25.
DEA officials say they won’t know the official national totals until early this week, but similar totals are rolling in from several states. Arizona collected more than three tons of prescription drugs, while New Jersey collected more than seven tons.
National Drug Take-Back Day was the first DEA-sponsored event of its kind, with all 50 states participating in efforts to prevent prescription drug abuse and keep the drugs from seeping into rivers and lakes through normal trash collection methods.
All drugs collected in Virginia were turned over to the DEA for incineration in Lorton.
The Montgomery County Police Department had similar success in its collections, held at police headquarters in Rockville and their second district station in Bethesda. The county collected 24 boxes of drugs, each weighing about five to 10 pounds.
“It actually proved more fruitful than we expected,” said Lt. Marcus Jones, commander of Montgomery County Police’s drug enforcement section. “It was only for four hours, and we had a constant flow of people.”
The event was also an opportunity to educate people about how to best dispose of expired or unwanted drugs when incineration isn’t an option. Most importantly, don’t put them in the water supply by flushing them down a toilet, said Marcus.
“If you put them in the trash, put them in old kitty litter or coffee grounds so people will be less likely to sift through the trash and steal them,” he said.
Several local departments in Prince George’s County also participated in the drug collection effort — officials in Bowie collected four boxes, and the University of Maryland police collected just over 49 pounds of drugs.
It is known how many pounds of drugs were collected statewide in Maryland and Washington, D.C.
According to the Center for Disease Control, drug overdose was the second leading cause of unintentional deaths in the United States in 2007. The rate of drug overdose deaths has increased fivefold since 1990.
