Drug Take Back Day opportunity to clean out medicine cabinets (Cibola County)

Wednesday, October 23, 2019; Grants, NM: Over 40 percent of people admit to snooping in medicine cabinets when visiting a house, according to a survey by party planning website The Salonniere.

What would they find in yours?

If the answer is medications, especially left-over pills, now is the time to clean out your medicine cabinet during Saturday’s (October 26, 2019) Drug Take Back Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at two locations in Cibola County: Grant’s Walmart and Laguna Pueblo Police Department.

The Cibola County Sheriff’s Department, Grants Police Department and Laguna Police Department are partnering with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to give Cibola County residents the opportunity to dispose of unused, unwanted or expired medications safely and anonymously during Drug Take Back Day.

“The National Drug Take Back Day allows the community to drop off their expired and unused medications safely knowing that they will be taken out of the community and disposed of properly,” said Lori Vigil, program specialist for the Cibola Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition which is assisting in coordinating the events.

Over 16 percent of Cibola County High School students reported taking a prescription painkiller without a prescription on the Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey (YRRS). Also, 9 percent admitted to taking a painkiller “to get high”, significantly higher than the New Mexico’s average of 6 percent. The YRRS is a national self-reported survey of the healthy, and not-so-healthy, behaviors of youth.

By removing unused prescription medications from the home and safely storing painkillers, people can better protect their loved ones from accidental poisonings and unintended overdoses.

According to the U.S. Library of Medicine’s Medline Plus, the worse place to store your medications is the bathroom medicine cabinet. In the bathroom medications are exposed to humidity and heat which can damage them. Instead the site advises to store medications in a cool, dry and secure place a kitchen cabinet with a childproof latch or in a locked storage box, especially if you have children in the house.

“Cleaning out your medicine cabinet further limits access to youth especially, but also to our entire community,” added Vigil.

Drug Take Back Day locations accept medications from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Laguna Pueblo Police Department, located at 1 Industrial Parkway, and the Grant’s WalMart, located at 1000 Robert Rd.

Prescription and over-the-counter medications are accepted. Sites cannot accept liquids, needles or sharps, only pills or patches. The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked.

For more information on Drug Take Back Day visit the DEA website: https://takebackday.dea.gov/ or contact Vigil at (575) 597-0346 or email lvigil@swchi.org.

This news release is made available by the Cibola Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition, a program of the Center for Health Innovation, and funded by the New Mexico Office of Substance Abuse Prevention (OSAP).