Oskaloosa PD joins with DEA and Iowa DNE in National Drug Drop-off Program

Oskaloosa Police Officer Charlie Valentine and University of Iowa Student Michael Burke were on hand to collect unwanted prescription drugs on Saturday, April 30th

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) second National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day was this past Saturday, April 30th. More than 5,300 sites nationwide have joined the effort that seeks to prevent pill abuse and theft. This is hundreds more sites than were established for the event last fall. The free event was held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time. Oskaloosa is covered under the St. Louis Division of the DEA, and that division had 269 agencies registered in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, South Dakota and Southern Illinois.

Oskaloosa’s Police Department joined in with this initiative as well. On hand was Charlie Valentine, Oskaloosa Narcotics Officer, who said that after only 40 minutes of being set up, they had already filled their box approximately one third of the way full. People continued to pull up, while we were speaking, to dispose of old medications.

Valentine said that this is the first year the OPD has participated in this event, as the DEA, only recently, started doing this project 6 months ago. With the previous program being a success, the DEA now does this once every 6 months.

The collection site, even though it was a “no questions asked” depository, was not intended for the disposal of illegal drugs. It was only meant for prescription drugs, over the counter medication and any other pills that no one was using.

The “Ultimate User” is the person whom had the prescription filled and received the medication. If an elderly person was then to ask someone to dispose of that medication for them, that technically would be illegal as the drugs wouldn’t belong to the person not listed on the prescription. Until different legislation is in hand, this type of disposal is a stop gap measure, of sorts, to allow the disposal of any unused medications.

There are also environmental benefits to disposal in this way. Trace amounts of medications are turning up in water supplies from the vast amounts of medications that get flushed into the sewers every year. Those chemicals are often hard to break down and remove, and they then end up back in the next towns water supply. With the proper disposal methods and drop off points, such as these, it could possibly help with the environmental impact as well.