‘National Drug Take Back Day’ Returns

Zanesville, Ohio – It’s time to turn your old prescription tablets, capsules, liquid dosages, intra-venous solutions, injectables and needles in for ‘National Drug Take Back Day.’

The Drug Enforcement Administration has made April 29, 2017 ‘National Drug Take Back Day’ from 10:00 A.M. until 2:00 P.M. Muskingum County will have two locations collecting old prescriptions. Riesbeck’s Pharmacy on June Parkway in South Zanesville and the Zanesville – Muskingum County Health Department on Seventh street in Downtown.

“This is a very good way of also being community minded and taking care of your community by not discarding them in the trash, discarding them on the side of the road, throwing them down the toilet, or anything like that,” Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz said. “So this is obviously created to be a safe environment and a safe way to get rid of the pills.”

The Health Department’s site will be the only location accepting liquid dosages, intra-venous solutions, and sharps. So Sheriff Lutz asked that all medical items being turned in be packaged so the people collecting can keep safe.

Photo By: Chase Flowers

“A lot of our medical syringes they put the caps back on the ends of the needles and bring them in, but anyway that you can make that stuff safer for us is better,” Sheriff Lutz said. “We like to have it packaged so we’re not actually touching the pills. We have gloves and we take precautions for it, but anyway that it can get it to us safely is a good benefit for us.”

If you can’t make it to either location for ‘National Drug Take Back Day’, the Muskingum County Jail has a permanent ‘Drug Take Back Box’ you may leave prescription tablets and capsules in.

“So if somebody can’t make it out all they have to do is swing by the jail 28 North Fourth Street,” Sheriff Lutz said. “They can come up and ring the buzzer, we will let them in, just tell [the employees] that they’re there to drop off some drugs. We have a box and basically it’s just like opening a drawer and they’ll put the drugs inside. Then we take care of emptying that each week and we destroy those in a proper way with other stuff that we destroy from evidence.

Sheriff Lutz said the Muskingum County Jail is staffed 24 hours 7 days a week and monitored by cameras. The permanent box was made based off of the ‘National Drug Take Back Day’ so people don’t have to keep old prescriptions for a couple of months until the next Drug Take Back Day.

According to Sheriff Lutz Muskingum Behavioral Health, Zanesville – Muskingum County Health Department, and Riesbeck’s Pharmacy will provide employees to collect the prescriptions. Genesis Healthcare System will dispose of all the sharps and Northside Pharmacies will dispose of all liquids. The D.E.A. will destroy all pills and Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office will provide on site officers for both locations.

For more information go to Zanesville – Muskingum County Health Department’s website, smchd.org