PORT TOWNSEND — Beginning Monday, Jefferson County residents will have two locations to dispose of unused prescription drugs and prevent them from being abused or dumped into the environment.
“The drug take-back program is necessary in order to remove unused prescription drugs from our medicine cabinets out of the hands of people who will abuse them or sell them,” said Jefferson County Sheriff Tony Hernandez, who is administering the program along with Port Townsend Police Chief Conner Daily.
The program was discussed in detail at the first 2011 meeting of the Jefferson County Substance Abuse Advisory Board on Tuesday.
The purpose of the program is to give people an easy, safe and anonymous way to dispose of their drugs.
The two secure drop boxes will be in the lobby of the Port Townsend Police Station, 1919 Blaine St., and at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, 79 Elkins Road, Port Hadlock.
The boxes will be open during business hours from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Sheriff’s Office and from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the police station.
Hernandez said he hoped to establish more locations throughout the county as the program grows.
A one-day take-back program in November was judged a success, as it gathered 63 pounds of unused and expired drugs from 52 people.
After the program is established, Hernandez said he hopes it will become the default option for the disposal of drugs that are no longer being used.
“It’s very easy, once these drugs have entered the community, for them to be hidden,” Hernandez said.
“Many people have these drugs on their countertops and think nothing about them, or they have them in their purse.
“People can come into your house and take some of these pills, and you will never know because you never remember how many pills are in that bottle.”
Hernandez said prescription drugs are especially dangerous because their effects can’t always be predicted, especially in situations where they are ingested in a random mix of other unrelated drugs.
Ford Kessler, director of Safe Harbor Recovery Center in Port Townsend, said that prescription drug abuse is nothing new but that it has recently become more serious.
“The No. 1 drug problem that has taken over from alcohol is prescription medication,” Kessler said.
“The kids put all the pills in a bowl at a party and pop them like candy, and they don’t even know what they are taking.”
Jefferson County Public Health Nursing Director Julia Danskin said the drugs can be dangerous even if they are not abused.
“From an environmental health perspective, it’s critical that all their medications don’t go into the water system,” she said.
“We don’t want people flushing the medication down the toilet,” she said.
“We would prefer that people drop them off at take-back programs so they don’t end up in the water system or the landfill.”
Hernandez said that getting prescription drugs out of homes can prevent suicides and accidents.
“Leaving a bottle of painkillers out where kids can get them is the same thing as leaving out a loaded gun,” he said.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
