70 Pounds of Expired, Unused Medicine Submitted in 90 Minutes

About 70 pounds of expired or unwanted medicines arrived at Arnold City Hall in 90 minutes on Saturday morning.

"And I still have about two hours left before I have to close," said Melissa Crane, the Arnold Police Department's Evidence Custodian.

The Arnold Police Department worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s second annual National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day held at City Hall, 2101 Jeffco Blvd. on Saturday.

Crane open City Hall doors at 10 a.m.. The event will end at 2 p.m.

More than 5,300 sites nationwide are part of the  effort to prevent pill abuse and theft, the DEA said in a news release.

"It's important to keep the medicines out of the water systems, landfills and the hands of undesirable people," Crane said. 

Pills in landfills can dissolve and seep into the waterways.

It is expensive to clean medicine from the water system, Crane said. 

Eliminating unused medicines from the home also prevents pill parties, where teens take parents' medicines, bring them to a party and pour the pills into a pile for experimentation.

Pill parties are not common in Arnold but it is important to remove the risk, Crane said.

Residents place their unwanted medicines in 3-foot tall boxes. People with syringes or needles places those items in a secured plastic box. 

'I don't look in the boxes. I just weigh them, and move them," Crane said.

DEA employees will retrieve and incinerate the boxes after the event.