Pharmaceutical Take Back Opportunities throughout the Valley - Free Drug Disposal from New Market to Strasburg - read more below:
Thanks to funding from the Shenandoah Community Foundation Friends is initiating a drug take back effort in local pharmacies in Strasburg, Woodstock, Mt. Jackson and New Market. Friends has placed Sharps Disposal boxes in cooperating pharmacies. You can dispose of your out of date our unused pharmaceuticals (non-narcotic), for free, at any of the participating pharmacies. Historically, we have been advised to flush our old or unused drugs down the toilet. Unfortunately, the chemicals that go down the toilet are not removed during the sewage treatment process or the drinking water filtration process. Friends identified more 59 different chemicals in the river in a 2006 study - some of which are the result of drugs going down toilets. Please use these take back opportunities and keep this stuff out of our river.
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FNFSR Alert National Drug Take Back Days in
Shenandoah County Great Successes in 2010 and 2011.
On September 25 Friends co-hosted a National Drug Take Back
Day with Shenandoah County Sheriffs office and the Drug Enforcement
Administration. The day was a huge success! More than 70 lbs. of
pharmaceuticals were collected and will be disposed of properly rather
than misused or flushed down the toilet.
TV 3 out of
Harrisonburg and local newspapers provided great news coverage of the
event and you can see the video clips at the links below:
TV3 National
Take Back Initiative
TV 3
Residents Cleared Out Cabinets for National Take Back Day
Thanks
to Sheriff Tim Carter and his staff for working with Friends to make
this happen. We hope to work with the Sheriff to bring more take back
opportunities in the future.
What do I do with my old and unused
medications?
Walton and Smoot Pharmacy at 109 S Main St, Woodstock, VA
22664 will take them back for you. Just visit their location in
Woodstock to dispose of your prescriptions. Patients of any pharmacy
can bring in unused or expired medications. The drugs should be in their
original stock containers. Pharmacists have to be able to see the
drugs because they can’t accept any controlled drugs. Read more at http://www.disposemymeds.org/
Although this effort is a nationwide event, promoting a
local collection site is intended to assist citizens of Shenandoah
County in removing potentially dangerous controlled substances from
their homes and prevent their unintended use, abuse or introduction into
the North Fork of the Shenandoah. Medicines left around the home are
highly susceptible to misuse and abuse. A significant portion of abused
prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, often from the
home medicine cabinet. Unused and improperly discarded pharmaceuticals
pose a major public health and safety risk and can contaminate our
rivers and our drinking water. If these drugs are flushed down the
toilet, they pass through waste water treatment plants and end up in our
rivers, which are the source of drinking water for many of our
citizens.
Procedures established by the DEA are as follows:
- This program is entirely voluntary and anonymous. Every effort will
be made to protect the privacy of individuals disposing of medications.
- Expired, unused or unwanted prescription and over the counter solid
dosage (tablets and capsules) medications will be accepted.
Medications may be disposed of in their original containers (remove
personal information) or by removing the medication from the container
and dumping directly into the disposal box at the collection site.
- Liquid products, such as cough syrup, should remain sealed in their
original container, with the cap tightly sealed to prevent leakage.
- Intravenous solutions, injectibles, and syringes will not be
accepted.
- Illegal or illicit substances such as marijuana or methamphetamine
will not be accepted.
- Collected medicines will be incinerated in accordance with all
applicable state and federal regulations.
The drug collection will be conducted solely by the Shenandoah
County Sheriff's Office and released to the DEA for proper disposal. The
Friends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah is assisting in the
promotion and advertisement of the event locally.
For further
information, please telephone Shenandoah County Sheriff's Office
Investigator Paul Ryman at (540) 459-6100 or Leslie Mitchell-Watson,
Executive Director of Friends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River
at (540) 459-8550.
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Police
Departments will also be collecting unused and unwanted prescription
medications at the following locations:
WINCHESTER SHERIFF'S
OFFICE - FREDERICK COUNTY/ WINCHESTER JOINT JUDICIAL CENTER, 5 N.
KENT ST., WINCHESTER, VA 22601 FREDERICK COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE -
WINCHESTER ELKS LODGE, 466 FRONT ROYAL PIKE, WINCHESTER, VA, 22602
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