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GOUVERNEUR, N.Y. — Kinney Drugs has scheduled medicine collection days this month and in March.
The events, which are slated for the last Saturday of each month, will collect unused or expired noncontrolled prescription medications, ensuring their proper disposal and preventing accidental poisonings, substance abuse and environmental pollution.
Only noncontrolled prescriptions are accepted, along with over-the-counter medicines, ointments, sprays, inhalers, creams, medication vials and pet medications.
Prescription drugs formulated with such narcotic ingredients as codeine, hydrocodone (Vicodin) and morphine, for example, cannot be accepted at the events. Also not being accepted are illegal drugs, biohazardous materials, needles, personal care products and household hazardous wastes, such as paint or pesticides.
Medicine collection dates are Saturday, February 26, and Saturday, March 26, at all Kinney locations.
“Public safety continues to remain one of our top priorities and commitments to our communities. Improperly disposing of medication can pose a serious threat to the safety of the public and Kinney Drugs urges the community to use the Medicine Collection Day events as a means of disposal for expired or unused medications,” says Michael Duteau, director of pharmacy operations for Kinney. “After our pharmacists sort the substances, they will be properly destroyed at a federally licensed facility.”
Proper medication disposal has increasingly become an issue of environmental and safety concern across the United States.
According to a study conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 70% to 80% of substance abusers said they took medications that belonged to a friend or relative, underscoring the need for proper, safe drug disposal.
