Text 
No Comments [ Add Comment ]Prescription meds drop-off working well, police say
By BRYON SAXTONLAYTON -- The large, steel box in the lobby of the Layton Police Station is getting used, with more than 100 pounds of unwanted prescription drugs being deposited there since May.
"In the last eight months, 130 pounds of medications have been deposited into the container and safely destroyed," said Layton Police Lt. Quinn Moyes.
The medications collected are incinerated rather than flushed down the sewer system, deposited into the landfill or abused by an experimenting teen who might find the medications in the family medicine cabinet, Moyes said.
One in five teens report intentionally misusing someone else's prescription drugs to get high, according to a Department of Environmental Quality Web site.
Nearly half of those teens say they get the medications from friends and relatives for free, often by raiding the medicine cabinet or by attending "pharming parties," where teens barter legal drugs and get high, the Web site states.
The collection box is a steel container clearly marked as a disposal site for prescription drugs, Moyes said. Top of Utah residents can anonymously deposit medications into the container 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Layton is one of just a handful of law enforcement agencies in the state serving as prescription medication drop sites, and the only agency in the Top of Utah.
The city received a grant in May from the DEQ to place the prescription medication disposal container at its station, Moyes said.
The container is provided to prevent drugs from being flushed down the toilet and entering the soil, surface water and ground water, Moyes said.
When drugs are flushed, the chemical ingredients are not removed by sewage treatment facilities or septic tank systems, he said.
Bill Sinclair, DEQ acting executive director, said the idea for the disposal boxes was born out of those efforts to keep pharmaceuticals out of the wastewater.
Studies have shown pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter drugs are present in the nation's water bodies and certain drugs may cause ecological harm, DEQ officials report.
One challenge facing the program is that only a handful of police departments across the state have the pill box drops, with limited federal funding limiting the expansion of those numbers.
The problem in the future is that federal funding for the initial program also was limited, Sinclair said. That means miles between medication drop box sites.
The closest drop-off site to the Layton Police Department is two disposal boxes in the lobbies of the Salt Lake City Police Department.
There, police report collecting 703 pounds of medications since December 2007.
Despite the cost of placing the steel containers, and the little bit of inconvenience it puts on the local police agency to manage it, officials are hopeful there will be a future expansion.
"We're hopeful this spreads to other communities," said Division of Water Quality director Walt Baker.
Baker said some may see the drop-offs as an inconvenience when there are easier means of disposing of prescription drugs, but those ways are usually not safe to waterways.
"It is a matter of education and public awareness that this will be a better avenue in disposing of these drugs," Baker said. "I think we're making some strides."
Other drop-box sites are located at the Cottonwood Heights Police Station, sheriff substations in Herriman, Holladay, Kearns and Magna and soon at the Uintah County Sheriff's Department in Vernal.
Grants for disposal boxes have also been approved for the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Hurricane and the Ivins City Public Safety Department in Washington County.
Add Your Comment
