HONOLULU - Residents who have expired or unused prescription medications are encouraged to bring them to the Maui Police Department parking lot Saturday as part of the fourth National Take Back Initiative.
The collection, which is free and anonymous, will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. No questions will be asked. Tablets, capsules and other solid-dosage forms of medication will be accepted, said a news release about the event, sponsored by the state attorney general in partnership with the state Narcotics Enforcement Division and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
In this event held nationwide, the DEA has collected a total of 498.5 tons of unwanted or expired medications for safe and proper disposal in the last 13 months.
Since September 2010, Hawaii officials have collected nearly 4,300 pounds of expired and unused prescription medications.
Unused or expired medicine should be disposed of properly. Medicines may lose their effectiveness after the expiration date. Improper use of prescription drugs can be as dangerous as illegal drug use and having unused and expired medicine in the home increases the risk of accidental poisoning, with people mistaking one type of medicine for another and children mistaking medicine for candy.
Unused or expired medicine should not be thrown in the trash or flushed down the toilet. Proper disposal helps reduce the risk of prescription drugs being used inappropriately and helps reduce the risk of prescription drugs entering the water supply or potentially harming aquatic life.
For more information, go the websites www.hawaii.gov/ ag, www.justice.gov/dea and www.hawaii.gov/psd.
