TROY—The Miami County Sheriff’s Office held its bi-annual Drug Take Back Day on Saturday, at the Miami County Sanitary Engineer’s Office.
Miami County Sheriff Dave Duchak said the office collected 32.8 lbs of medication on Saturday, with a total of 178.2 lbs collected over the last six months.
Duchak said Miami County started the Pharmaceutical Drug Disposal Program about ten years ago.
“We kind of started it out, we were one of the first agencies in the county to start out doing it,” Sheriff Duchak said. “The DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) got involved at a national level. They started setting one date in April and one date in October.”
Now, he said he believes almost all of the law enforcement agencies in Miami County have their own similar program.
The DEA picks up the medications after the event, and destroys them in an environmentally-safe way.
Sheriff Duchak said the event holds two purposes.
“It’s to protect the environment, to insure the medication is not going into our streams,” he said. “But it’s also to protect our young people, or those vulnerable to addiction, so the medication is less available. If they’re not needed anymore, we don’t want our young people getting them.”
If anyone missed the event, the Miami County Sheriff’s Office has two locations where unwanted medication may be dropped off for environmentally-safe destroying.
From 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, citizens can stop by the Sheriff’s Office, where they have a drop box in the lobby, or stop by the the Miami County Sanitary Engineer’s Office where they have a curbside drop box.
There is no paperwork to complete and no one you need to speak with, simply drop your old or unused prescription pills in the box.
Any items dropped off should be in pill or patch form only, no liquids or needles are accepted. For efficiency, the Sheriff’s Office requests that all pills be placed in a clear plastic baggie and empty pill bottles discarded.
The Miami County Sheriff’s Office is located at 201 W. Main St, Troy, OH 45373, and the Sanitary Engineer’s Office is located at 2200 North County Road, Troy, Ohio. For more information, please contact the Miami County Sheriff’s Office by phone at 937-440-6085.
