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October 19, 2020

STPSO Participating in National Drug Take Back Initiative Saturday

This Saturday (October 24, 2020) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office will participate with the Drug Enforcement Administration to remove unused and expired medications from homes and medicine cabinets.

Bring your pills for disposal to the STPSO Administrative Building, 300 Brownswitch Road in Slidell; to the STPSO Law Enforcement Complex at 2070 Collins Blvd. in Covington: or to Lakeview Regional Medical Center Physicians Plaza Entrance at 95 Judge Tanner Boulevard in Covington. The DEA cannot accept liquids, needles or sharps - only pills or patches. The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked. Any identifying information should be removed from containers before being deposited.

This Saturday’s event is DEA’s 19th nationwide event since its inception 10 years ago.  Last fall, Americans turned in nearly 883,000 pounds of prescription drugs at nearly 6,300 sites operated by the DEA and almost 5,000 of its state and local law enforcement partners. DEA, along with its law enforcement partners, has now collected nearly 6,350 tons of expired, unused, and unwanted prescription medications since the inception of the National Prescription Drug Take Back Initiative in 2010.To keep everyone safe, collection sites will follow local COVID-19 guidelines and regulations. 

This initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue. 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 the majority of 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 or throwing them in the trash—both pose potential safety and health hazards.

The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office also has permanent drug take-back boxes at the STPSO Administrative Building and the STPSO Law Enforcement Complex in Covington. This on-going initiative is a collaborative effort in partnership with Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators and numerous Louisiana law enforcement agencies.  For more information about the disposal of prescription drugs or about the Oct. 26 Take Back Day initiative, visit www.DEATakeBack.com.

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