Woman’s Voice: This special program is brought to you by the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition. Guests provide information about upcoming events, resources available, and the many ways to help reduce substance use and promote a healthy Lenawee.
Kathy Williams: This is Kathy Williams and with me on tonight’s program is Tim Kelly. Tim is the chairperson for the Prevention and Education part of Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition. And Tim, we’ve got some big news to share tonight.
Tim Kelly: Yeah, we’d like all the people out there that participated in our annual Drug Take Back Day last Saturday to give themselves a big pat on the back. It was a record haul, so to speak.
Kathy Williams: It was a haul.
Tim Kelly: We… we, took in over 700 pounds of medications. More than we’ve done ever by far actually. I mean, we had one year, three years ago, we had 600 pounds and, and I think we were at 757 pounds for this year.
Kathy Williams: Yes. It’s crazy. You know, we appreciate everyone that came out on Saturday the 22nd. It was out at the ProMedica Charles and Virginia Hickman Hospital. It’s a national event, though. We want to be sure that people understand that. That’s going to happen twice a year, April and October. And it’s run technically by the DEA, is that right?
Tim Kelly: Yeah, yeah. It is a national event, so if you… any place you could go in the country, there’s, every county has one of these events. One’s in April and the other’s in October every year. And yeah, they’re… I’m just so happy that we had so many people attend this one this year.
Kathy Williams: Well, and yeah, they thought about 417 people maybe actually came through. I know the line moved very quickly cause you know, the… to donate you don’t even have to get out of your car. And so, and they had, we ran out of goody bags. We got to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
Tim Kelly: Yeah.
Kathy Williams: But everyone was, genuinely happy to be there and happy to be doing this.
Tim Kelly: Yeah. They, it was really a great job by the, the people from ProMedica and the, the University of Toledo pharmacy students.
Kathy Williams: Yes.
Tim Kelly: Who would let people just drive right up there and they’d take the stuff out of their car for them and, and sort it out and dispose of it all. So…
Kathy Williams: And knowing that it’s a secure way also, because they had representatives from the sheriff’s department were there. You know, because some of these are narcotics that are, that are being disposed of. But it’s, it’s all about disposing of things in a better way without going down your toilets or in your landfills or could possibly contaminate our water supplies.
Time Kelly: Yeah, we get, we you know, have learned as a society that we don’t want this stuff in our water. It does show up and it, it can be affecting you know, the quality of water and, and how people’s quality of life is. But you know, the other thing is that, you know, young kids and stuff can get access to things that are probably harmful to them. And some people could take medicine that’s expired and that’s dangerous as well. So there’s a lot of reasons to get this stuff disposed of.
Kathy Williams: Yeah, we talk about that a lot leading up to the events and I’m sure we’ll remind people in October as well that, you know, you shouldn’t save something for the next time I need it.
Tim Kelly: Yeah.
Kathy Williams: Hopefully you have insurance that’ll have cover that next, that next time. But they lose potency. They… you don’t want to mix them up with other drugs that you might be on at the, at the same time. There’s too much that can happen with using more than one medication at a time. Interactions might affect how they work for you.
Tim Kelly: Right. And, and you just don’t know how it’s going to do it. So, I mean, you know, it is nice to think, “Oh, I’ll just save this till later for, for the next time I have a headache or whatever.” And you may be on a different set of medicines…
Kathy Williams: Right.
Tim Kelly: You know, between then and now and, and that could have a really adverse effect for you.
Kathy Williams: Exactly. So, you know, personally, I have a hard, I have a hard time imagining 509 pounds of tablets and capsules. I mean that “oral solids” they called it. But 509 pounds of little teeny pills. It’s just… blows your mind.
Tim Kelly: Yeah, that’s a lot of little teeny pills. Yeah. Yeah.
Kathy Williams: I know, I know. Liquids and that included… Well, let’s see. They had liquids, which, so cough, syrups, all that kind of stuff.
Tim Kelly: Yep. That type of stuff.
Kathy Williams: Medication, 228 pounds. Even topical, oh that was…
Tim Kelly: Yeah.
Kathy Williams: And including topicals. But then also inhalers, 19 pounds of inhalers. Wow
Tim Kelly: Wow. Yeah. You think of those little inhalers
Kathy Williams: Yeah.
Tim Kelly: And you got 19 pounds of them.
Kathy Williams: Well, and that was one of the things that we talked about ahead of time too, is that a lot of times inhalers and creams and topical ointments, you never get all of it out of there.
Tim Kelly: Yeah.
Kathy Williams: You know, it’s like the toothpaste bottle. You just can’t get it all out. And so those are a good example of just – put it aside, put it in a safe place and bring it to us in October.
Tim Kelly: Yep, yep. Yeah. Say “hang onto those and bring them in in October”. The other, the other number that every time is shocking to me is the, the amount of sharps, the number of syringes and stuff that’s brought back to us.
Kathy Williams: Yes.
Tim Kelly: And, although it wasn’t more this time, it was 9 38 gallon containers
Kathy Williams: Yeah.
Tim Kelly: Of sharps.
Kathy Williams: Hard to hardly, to even visualize.
Tim Kelly: Yeah, it is.
Kathy Williams: So, we’ll have to see if we can get a picture next year of the final hurrah…
Tim Kelly: Yeah.
Kathy Williams: When it, you know, they’ve got it already packed in a car or something to help that really sink in. So, you know, if you want to find more out, more about the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition, you can go to Drug Prevention Lenawee online. And, you know, learn lots of ways to help keep drugs off our streets and keep them out of the hands of people that shouldn’t have them.
Tim Kelly: Yep. And look for us again in October for the next one.
Kathy Williams: Exactly. Thanks, Tim.
Tim Kelly: Yep. Thank you.
Woman’s Voice: The Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition supported by funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration. Thank you for listening. New messages air on the second and fourth Monday each month at 6:15 PM. You can listen to this program as a podcast under the “on air audio” tab on WLEN.com and get more information at DrugPreventionLenawee.com.
