Safely discard medication on National Prescription Drug Take Back Day in the Philadelphia area
Safely discarding medications that are no longer needed. There's an opportunity to do that in the Philadelphia area this weekend.
Saturday, April 26, is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.
It's a leading cause of injury and death in U.S. adults. Drug overdoses killed over 105,000 Americans in 2023, according to the latest CDC data.
Doctors said it's important to make sure unused pills don't make it into the wrong hands.
"Prescription medications can be very difficult to predict how dangerous they are if people take them when they're not prescribed specifically for them," said Dr. David Streem, medical director of the alcohol and drug recovery center at Cleveland Clinic.
Doctors have said many times that people who are addicted to opiates don't get the pills from the street but from the medicine cabinets of family and friends. That's why it's important to properly dispose of unused or expired medications, which will also keep them away from pets and young children.
"Some really tragic things can happen," said Streem.
Doctors said some of the most concerning medications to properly discard are those with an overdose or toxicity risk that include pain medications, sedating drugs like sleeping and anti-seizure medicines but also blood pressure medication.
People can take those who don't really need them. Blood pressure, heart rate drop dramatically, and people can become very critically ill very quickly," said Streem.
An easy way to properly dispose of unused medicine is by taking part in National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on Saturday.
"Look through your old medications and get rid of the stuff that you don't need anymore," said Streem.
Several police departments are accepting unwanted prescription drugs, including the Gloucester Township and Mount Laurel Police departments.
In Pennsylvania, there are drop-off boxes at state police departments.
