Drug Take Back Day Planned

Muskingum Co.-Drugs can take many forms, shapes and sizes.

This Saturday, the Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office in conjunction with the Muskingum County Drug Enforcement Agency, the Muskingum County Health Department, Muskingum Behavioral Health and Genesis Healthcare System will be holding their spring drug take back event.

Sheriff Matt Lutz explained how the partnership provides a safe, responsible way to dispose of unused or expired medications.

“Genesis provides containers for us to take sharps, which you can’t really do at any of their locations and then Genesis Pharmacy will take back the liquids that we take in there. They provide also some staffing and some other stuff that we use to take back stuff,” said Sheriff Lutz.

Sheriff Lutz expressed gratitude to the health department for providing their locations that will be collecting pills, liquids and sharps as well as Riesbeck’s where their June Parkway site will only be accepting pills.

“This is a drive up type, style. So really, no matter what the weather is, you don’t have to worry about getting out in cold weather or hot weather or rainy weather, you can just pull up, you can roll the window down and hand it to us out of the bag. A lot of people will put the stuff in their trunk in the garage and drive up, pop the trunk and we’ll get it out of the trunk for them. We do a really good job… The workers do a really good job of scratching off the names on the pill bottles. Most times we’ll send the pill bottles out to recycling to utilize that,” said Lutz.

The event will take place from 10AM until 2PM Saturday, April 22 at the Health Department located at 6th and Shinnick Street in Zanesville and Riesbeck Foods on June Parkway in South Zanesville.