Take-back bins can keep medications out of the wrong hands
When a burglar breaks into a home, what’s one of the first places they look? It’s not the jewelry box — it’s the medicine cabinet. Criminals may lift your TV and your diamonds, but they also snag your prescription drugs to be sold on the streets, introducing dangerous controlled substances into the community. And it’s not just that burglars want your meds: Friends, family, and others in your home may find unwanted medication in your unlocked medicine cabinet as well.
“Kids are getting a hold of these medications, and that’s a real problem. They are at a friend’s house, or even their own home, and they look for places where medications are stored and they’ll take some pills,” says Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper. “Teenagers can get addicted, they can overdose, they can go to a party and share it with friends or mix it with alcohol or other drugs and the consequences can be serious disability or even death.”
“Take-back bins provide a convenient way to dispose of your unwanted or expired medications.”
Sheriff Jim Cooper, Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department
While residents can take unwanted drugs to law enforcement agencies, some people might not feel comfortable walking into a police station with a plastic bag full of pills. It’s also illegal to possess a prescription drug belonging to someone else, so when a loved one passes away, caretakers and family members are often left with no legal way to dispose of the drugs. Anonymous pharmaceutical take-back bins offer people an easy and responsible way to safely dispose of unwanted or expired medications, which are then incinerated at waste-to-renewable-energy plants. The take-back bin program targets the opioid crisis and the mishandling of other controlled and over-the-counter drugs. At its heart is a statewide network of bins placed in law-enforcement agencies, pharmacies and hospitals for public use.
“Take-back bins provide a convenient way to dispose of your unwanted or expired medications,” says Sheriff Cooper. “There’s so much medication out there, we want to get it out of the community so that young people won’t have an opportunity to find and abuse that medication.”
Without the convenience and availability of medication take-back bins, disposal options are primarily limited to flushing them down the drain or throwing medications away in the trash. Both of those options risk polluting watersheds that provide municipal drinking water supplies. Considering it’s not just that burglars want your meds, stockpiling medications at home until a community take-back event happens can increase the risk of misuse.
“A lot of people tell me that they didn’t know what to do with their unwanted medications. But there are bins all around Sacramento County. I encourage everyone to use them to dispose of unwanted drugs,” says Sheriff Cooper. “Dispose of your unwanted medications now, and you may prevent an overdose in the future.”
To find a safe disposal drug take-back bin near you, go to medtakebackcalifornia.org.
Read more stories about med bins in California’s Central Valley, High Desert, Los Angeles/Ventura, North Central Valley, North Coast, Orange County, Rural Mountains, San Diego, South Central Valley.
Brought to you by the California Drug Take-Back Program and the California Product Stewardship Council.
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