More than 250 police departments throughout New Jersey have signed on to participate in Operation Medicine Cabinet, an initiative designed to enable residents of their communities to properly dispose of unused, unwanted, and expired medicines.
Local residents may take such medicines to the Haddonfield Police Department, at the rear of the Borough Hall, between 10am and 2pm on Saturday, November 14.
The drop-off is anonymous. The attending officer will merely receive the medicines and place them in a secure container for disposal. He will not ask any questions about the medicines, nor will he ask for the name, address, or ID of those who stop by.
Commissioner Ed Borden, Haddonfield's Director of Public Safety, said the initiative has two goals: to combat prescription drug abuse by removing unused drugs from medicine cabinets, and to stop unwanted drugs from entering the water supply.
"Prescription drug abuse is a much bigger problem than most people realize," Borden said. A survey conducted last year by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America found that one in five teenagers reported abusing a prescription medicine; more than half said they got the pills from a home medicine cabinet.
"Many addicted teens take outdated prescription drugs from their parents' and grandparents' medicine cabinets," Borden said, "and the adults are totally unaware. It's a serious problem."
Borden also said that flushing unwanted medicines down the toilet is not an appropriate way to dispose of them. "It would be better to mix them with water and cat litter and put the mixture in the trash," he said.
The best solution? Take unused, unwanted, and expired medicines to the Haddonfield Police Department on November 14, Borden said.
Operation Medicine Cabinet is being spearheaded by the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s New Jersey Division, the Office of the Attorney General, and the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey. In Haddonfield, it is being sponsored by the Police Department and the Municipal Alliance.
The Special Agent-in-Charge of the DEA in New Jersey, Gerard P. McAleer, said that law enforcement agencies throughout the state "are concerned with the alarming trend in the misuse and abuse of prescription drugs, with potential access to these drugs coming from the medicine cabinets of family and friends.”
NJ Attorney General Anne Milgram said that Operation Medicine Cabinet will reduce the availability of potent drugs that lead kids down a path to addiction. "We can't break a cycle of dependence," she said, "if powerful prescription drugs are stashed in our own homes, tucked away in drawers and cabinets."
“We are calling on New Jersey residents to see their medicine cabinets through new eyes," Milgram said, "as an access point for potential misuse and abuse of over-the-counter and prescription medicine by young people.”
The 2007 National Study of Drug-Use and Health found that 70% of people who abuse prescription pain relievers say they got them from friends or relatives. The National Institute of Drug Abuse reports that upwards of nine million people use prescription medication for non-medical uses. A Parents Tracking Survey conducted in 2009 by the Partnership for a Drug- Free New Jersey found that nearly half of the parents of middle school students said they know "a little or just about nothing" about prescription drug abuse.
Haddonfield residents who have questions about Operation Medicine Cabinet should call the Police Department at 856-429-4700 x 250. Additional information can be obtained at www.OperationMedicin eCabinetNJ.com.
