Bags filled with pills

[SecularMotion]

A hundred-plus people drop off prescriptions at the county’s first roundup.

GREAT BARRINGTON -- One by one they came, the young and the old, many carting bags and boxes filled with long-expired medications.

The prescription pill roundup on Saturday, organized by the Great Barrington Police Department and three local organizations, was the first such collection program ever organized in the Berkshires.

The organizers were overwhelmed by what they received: 43 pounds of pills; 59 pounds of non-pills such as creams, ointments and patches; and 26 pounds of other items, including acupuncture and hypodermic needles, all in five hours.

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_15487489

Seems like a good program. Has this been done in other communities?

[NNN0LHI]

1. We have drop off boxes located throughout the community for unused pharmaceuticals

Kind of like a mail box.

Don

[DURHAM D]

2. In the last few years of their lives my parent's doctors kept changing their medication.

Both type and dosage. So we had a lot to dispose of. They lived in a small midwestern town.

When we asked the doctors and the retirement community how to get rid of the medication they told us to drop it in the toilet. My sister (who lives in the area) refused because as she said: "I drink this water, my children drink the water and my grandchildren drink the water."

She made a lot of calls looking for help. Eventually she burned the pills. She did not feel this was a proper method and was shocked that the health care structure had never given a thought to the long term effects of dumping it in the water supply.

This community collection is fantastic and I hope it catches on everywhere.