Attorney General Alan Wilson urges South Carolinians to participate in Prescription Drug Take Back Day tomorrow

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – October 27, 2017 Attorney General Alan Wilson urges South Carolinians who have prescription drugs they no longer need to properly dispose of them tomorrow during National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. There will be thousands of locations nationwide where people can drop off their unused medications for proper disposal.

Getting rid of unused prescription drugs helps address a serious public safety and public health issue. According to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 6.4 million Americans abused controlled prescription drugs. The study found that a majority of the people who abused prescription drugs got them from family and friends, often from a home medicine cabinet.

“We know that, in a lot of cases, people will get a legitimate prescription for painkillers but they’ll be given a 30-day supply when they only need three or four pills, so the rest sit in the medicine cabinet,” Wilson says. “In too many cases, those extra pills end up in the wrong hands and can lead to addiction and death. So Prescription Drug Take Back Day is the perfect opportunity for people to safely and anonymously get rid of any prescription medicines they don’t need anymore.”

At the last National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on Saturday, April 29th, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and its partners collected 900,386 pounds (450 tons) of prescription drugs, the most ever. There have been 13 events since September 2010 that have collected more than 8.1 million pounds of prescription drugs.

You can find the collection location nearest you at this website.