Muskingum County’s Drug Take Back Day helps community safely dispose of prescription medications

ZANESVILLE, OH- The Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Prescription Drug Take Back Day provided a valuable opportunity for the Muskingum County community to safely dispose of unused or expired medications this weekend.

This year, the Muskingum County Health Department, along with the Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office and other local health agencies, hosted multiple drive-through drop-off locations. The primary site was at the Zanesville-Muskingum County Health Department.

“This event aims to remove unneeded prescriptions from homes to help prevent medication misuse by offering anonymous disposal of unneeded medications and there are 5,000 drop off locations nationwide, we’re just one of them doing this today,” the Public Information Officer, Jennifer Hiestand said.

The collected medications are destroyed following D.E.A. protocols to ensure safe and environmentally responsible disposal.

“We also do this for the environment, we don’t want people flushing their medications into our water supply, so it’s just good to protect everyone’s health and keep everyone safe and bring awareness to the fact that these medications can be misused, and we want to prevent that from happening,” Hiestand said.

For those who couldn’t attend, there is a permanent medication drop-off box available year-round at the Muskingum County jail.