For immediate release
Contact: Karen Fischer, LYSB
860-434-7208
Lyme/Old Lyme Residents: Got Drugs?
Clean out your medicine cabinet and go to the Old Lyme Firehouse on Lyme Street on Saturday, April 30, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Bring any expired or unused prescriptions or over the counter medications and they will be properly discarded for you. Police officers from Old Lyme and volunteers from the CASFY Coalition and Lymes’ Youth Service Bureau are assisting in this national prevention program sponsored by the DEA (federal Drug Enforcement Agency).
“There has been an alarming rise nationally in the misuse of prescription drugs, especially pain medications,” stated Officer Martin Lane. “We need to work together as a community to prevent medication misuse that can result in addiction, overdoses and deaths”. The Southeast Regional Action Council reports that “16% of youth in southeastern Connecticut have abuse prescription medications by the time they have graduated high school and that 10% of youth have used over the counter medication to get high by graduation.”
According to national surveys, the majority of teens abusing prescription drugs get them from family and friends—and the home medicine cabinet.
“All medications need to be monitored and secured in homes, and not just those where children live, but in all homes they visit-grandparents, cousins, friends,” advised Karen Fischer, Prevention Coordinator for the CASFY Coalition (Community Action for Substance Free Youth). She added, “And proper disposal of drugs is essential-to save lives and protect the environment.”
If you cannot bring your medications on April 30, please follow the DEA’s directions for proper disposal:
1) Take the meds out of their bottles;
2) Mix them with something unappealing, such as used cat litter or coffee grounds;
3) Seal them in a bag or disposable container, and throw in the trash.
4) Remove label from medication bottle or block out information with black marker and throw in the trash.
5) Do not flush medications unless expressly directed on patient information enclosed with prescriptions.
For more information, visit www.dea.gov,
www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/pdf/prescrip_disposal.pdf
