Monday, February 23, 2009

Pinal County Prescription Drug Turn-In Event

The Pinal County Attorney’s Office along with the Sheriff’s Office would like to see all unused, left over or expired prescription drugs out of people’s cabinets and away from our children and our ground water.

In order to protect the public, the Pinal County Attorney’s Office and the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office will be holding a Prescription Drug Turn-in during the Lost Dutchman Days of Apache Junction. Our booth will be at the Rodeo Grounds, 1590 East Lost Dutchman Blvd.

The public is invited to bring their left over prescription drugs to the Law Enforcement Booth at the Rodeo Grounds on Friday, Feb. 27th, between 10 am and 4 pm. Deputies will be standing by to collect the drugs, which will then be destroyed by the Sheriff’s Department in a safe and legal manner.

Left over prescription drugs are in all of our cabinets. They come from prescriptions which we did not finish when we were sick. Some of these are seriously out of date and others are narcotics which should not be lying around.

One of the serious problems among our youth is the misuse of prescription drugs. These are normally obtained from left over drugs in parent’s medicine cabinets. Teens will mix these drugs without knowing that mixing some of them can be dangerous and sometimes fatal.

Another problem is with adults who either do not pay attention or who are confused and accidentally take the wrong drug. This, also, can have serious consequences.

These left over medications need to be disposed of. However, we do not want people to flush them into the water table or to throw them in the trash where they can be recovered by children or others.