SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Saturday, October 26 is National Drug Take Back Day. This is a great opportunity to clean out your medicine cabinet.

“Everyone, myself included, probably has something in their medicine cabinet that they haven’t used in a while. Just like you clean out your pantry and get rid of expired stuff, don’t leave boxes of things that are expired in there; it just takes up space. Go through your medicine cabinet. Clean it up. You get expired stuff, stuff you don’t use. Bring it back,” said Alps Pharmacy pharmacist Tom Mengwasser.

It’s easy. There are three locations in Springfield and several around the Ozarks. In Springfield, you can go to CoxHealth, Sam’s Club or Library Station on the Kansas Expressway.

You can bring in almost any drug and they will ship it and destroy it.

“Any tablets, capsules, most liquids, bring them all. No aerosols like inhalers or anything like that because there are chemicals we can’t deal with. And anything that deals with blood, so like needles, syringes, anything like that, we can’t handle that either, because there’s all kinds of rules and stuff once you get down those lines. Tablets, capsules, liquids, these are all very easy to throw away,” said Mengwasser.

Mengwasser says this is a better way to get rid of drugs than to flush them. You should never flush your medication because it can end up back in the water supply.

“If you flush it down the toilet, you might think it’s gone, but it’s still floating in the water somewhere. Someone drinks some fentanyl, or a dog licks it off. It won’t be good. So it’s better to be safe. There are better ways to dispose of drugs,” Mengwasser said.

If you can’t make it on the day you return your medication, many pharmacies have a disposal box that you can use at any time.

Mengwasser says this is a great way to combat the prescription or opioid crisis in the US. The DEA says they disposed of more than 300 tons of drugs on the last Drug Take Back Day.

“The opioid epidemic, with people taking grandma’s pain medication and selling it or taking it themselves, there’s data that shows that about three or four years ago, they did a study here in Greene County that showed that it was like, let’s say, 10 to 14 percent of the sixth and eighth graders said they were exposed to prescription drugs in a similar way, and then they redid the study with a few years ago after I went through drug withdrawals and stuff like that and that was drastically reduced. I mean, almost cut in half,” Mengwasser said.

To find a local drop-off location, you can visit Here. Drug Take Back Day is Saturday from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm throughout the Ozark region.

To report a correction or typo, please send an email [email protected]. Please include item information in the subject line of the email.

Copyright 2024 KY3. All rights reserved.