RIPLEY, W.Va. — There will be three locations for citizens in Jackson County to drop off expired and unused prescription drugs on Saturday.
The locations include the Kenna Volunteer Fire Department, Ripley City Building and Ravenswood Fire Department as part of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.
“We are trying to keep these medications out of the hands of young people or those people who struggle with addiction,” Amy Haskins with the Jackson County Health Department said ‘The Valley Today’ with Joe Stephens on MetroNews affiliate WMOV.
The 18th annual event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday at hundreds of locations in West Virginia and across the U.S.
Dropoffs are free and can be made anonymously.
Haskins said health officials are accepting everything, including vaping products this year.
“We accept absolutely anything they need to get rid of,” Haskins said. “Expired or unwanted medication that has been sitting there for a while. We just ask that you leave it in the original container. We will blackout all personal information before dropping the medication into a bag.”
Haskins said that once the day is over, the DEA takes all the medication that they collect within a certain region and drives it to Virginia. From there, its placed in a large incinerator there and burned by the DEA with law enforcement present.
According to numbers by the DEA, since first launching in 2010, more than 11 million pounds, or almost 6,000 tons, of medications have been collected at Take Back events at happen twice a year.
In April, more than 469 tons of prescription drugs were dropped off at more than 6,258 DEA sites nationwide and through 4,969 local partners.
The list of locations registered as dropoff sites for Saturday is available HERE or by calling 800-882-9539.
“Our goal is always the same every year,” acting DEA administrator Uttam Dhillion said. “We discovered that people become addicted to the medications in their homes. Friends and family members will take these and that will begin the cycle of drug addicition and abuse.”