Dispose Of Unwanted Drugs In Port Washington On National Take Back Day

PORT WASHINGTON, NY — National Rx Take-Back Day is Saturday, and there are several places near Port Washington where you can dispose of unwanted, unneeded or expired medications.

This is the time to clean out drawers and cabinets of unused or expired drugs or medications — whether for people or pets — before they fall into the wrong hands or add to the stew of discarded pharmaceuticals sent into the sewers and out into Long Island Sound.

Here's a handy online search tool for a collection site near you. The Sands Point and Lake Success police departments are on it — 26 Tibbits Lane in Port Washington or 15 Vanderbilt Drive in Great Neck — as is the Nassau County Police Department at 30 Community Drive in Manhasset.

Can't make it Saturday? Police departments across Nassau County have collection boxes for every-day disposal. Find out more here.

National Drug Take Back Day is a national event. Its goal is to prevent medications from falling into the wrong hands and reduce the risk of misuse and addiction. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration's motto for medications is "Keep them safe. Clean them out. Take them back."

This is the 26th national Take Back Day. In October, for the 25th annual event, 300 tons of medications were collected nationwide — making the total over a quarter-century 8,950 tons.

This initiative addresses a couple of vital public safety and public health issues.

Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows year after year that most misused and abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including someone else’s medication being stolen from the home medicine cabinet.

In addition, Americans are now advised that their usual methods for disposing of unused medicines — flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash — both pose potential safety and health hazards.

The medications — antibiotics, cholesterol and blood-pressure meds, acetaminophen and a dozen more — are believed to enter through sewage outfalls after people excrete unmetabolized doses, or when they flush unused pills or dump medicine down the drain.

They end up in our waterways. In some places, levels may be high enough to affect aquatic life.