RITCHIE COUNTY, W.Va. — Law enforcement officers and other county officials in both Wirt County and Ritchie County are among the first to receive thousands of drug deactivation pouches to help ensure proper disposal of unused, unneeded or outdated prescription pills.
On Monday, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) visited both Ritchie County Middle High School and Wirt County High School to discuss drug abuse and distribute portions of the total 55,000 drug deactivation pouches Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals has donated to West Virginia.
Manchin addressed 400 high school students at Ritchie County Middle High School in Ellenboro.
Captain Bryan Davis with the Ritchie County Sheriff’s Department, the prevention resource officer there, said drug problems do make it into the school day.
“We’re not seeing, as far as making arrests or filing juvenile petitions, as much as some other schools in the state but, I think, a lot of the times we see the effects that it has on students from the home,” he told MetroNews.
“We are seeing some students that have pills or we get information that they may be bringing them from home and either selling them or handing them out (at school).”
Ritchie County’s share will be 1,000 pouches to be distributed through the Ritchie County Sheriff’s Department. Manchin delivered 1,000 pouches to members of the Wirt County Commission earlier in the day Monday at Wirt County High School in Elizabeth.
By the time the distribution is complete, each county should have 1,000 pouches which allow for safe trash disposal of prescription medications.
While there are prescription drug take back days, “Some elderly folks that have a lot of meds that want to get rid of them, instead of them bringing them in in a big bag or waiting for one day, they can come into our office and we can give them a couple of the pouches and they can destroy them on their own,” Davis said.
In October, Manchin announced the Mallinckrodt drug deactivation pouch donation at Winfield Middle School during a National Red Ribbon Week event.
“This is an easy disposable. This bag here, you put in and can put up to 45-50 pills in, half a bag of water and it’ll dissolve itself, throw it away and it’s biodegradable,” Manchin said while explaining how the pouches worked.
Every step helps in the fight against drug abuse, in Davis’ view, “We’re trying to combat this everywhere we can.”