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MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. Local residents are invited this weekend to give their medicine cabinets a spring cleaning and come to Mount Kisco to drop off old prescription drugs.
Saturday is the fourth annual National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, an initiative run by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) that takes expired or unwanted prescription drugs out of circulation.
The Mount Kisco Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention Council will hold its drive at the police station from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with all donations to be supervised by the DEA.
Mel Berger, council chairperson and retired pharmacist, said prescription pills are not only dangerous if directly abused, but can also infiltrate into the water system. The DEA, he said, incinerates the collected pills and sends the council a report.
You want to make sure that theyre destroyed safely for everybody, Berger said.
According to Berger, it is not enough to flush drugs down the toilet or even throw them in the garbage can, where they will go to the dump. Hormones, steroids and cancer drugs can penetrate the groundwater, which will leach out into the Hudson River, he said.
Last years take-back day, he said, was an unexpected success. Scheduled for the weekend of October's surprise snowstorm, the drive still collected eight cases of drugs, a haul that weighed more than 100 pounds.
The DEA told us afterward that they were stunned that the response was so great," especially during such treacherous weather conditions, Berger said.
Berger said that abusing painkillers like hydrocodone, Oxycontin and Percocet has become popular with teens because they have easy access to medicine cabinets, whether at friends houses, parties or their own homes.
Mount Kisco drug council co-coordinator Nan Miller said the lengths some teenagers will go to get drugs and alcohol can be surprising and that they may even search through a garbage can.
Berger said that the danger lies not only in the issue of easy access, but in the possibility that the potency of some drugs may increase over time.
There is no way to tell whether the drug is now twice as potent as when it was first prescribed or whether it has no potency at all, he said, adding that this creates a risk for overdose, especially if these prescriptions are combined or mixed with alcohol.
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