Woman’s Voice: The Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition is a diverse group of dedicated community members united around the goal of reducing substance use in Lenawee County. LSAPC members work collaboratively to engage and educate the community in order to promote a healthy Lenawee.
Kathy Williams: This is Kathy Williams. And with me on tonight’s program is Tim Kelly. Tim is the Social and Emotional Learning Coordinator at Lenawee Intermediate School District, LISD, but importantly tonight, he is the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition’s chairperson of Prevention and Education. Tim and I are going to be talking about the upcoming Drug Take-Back event. Tim Saturday, April 30th.
Tim Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. 10:00 to 2:00 at ProMedica Hickman Hospital. Please, yeah, everybody come on out and dispose of those meds. It’s a real simple process. You just drive around back, follow the signs, and someone will direct you on in there. You can even say “hi” to Kathy as you go by. She’s always out there.
Kathy Williams: If you come during the broadcast.
Tim Kelly: During the broadcast, okay. Well, if you do give her some coffee, she’s… it’s kind of cold. She’s standing out there while.
Kathy Williams: Thank you, yes, it does get a little bit cold. So it’s a national event. We had a couple of them last year that were very successful and the Drug Take-Back itself is happening from 10 o’clock, till two o’clock on the 30th.
Tim Kelly: Yeah.
Kathy Williams: If you’ve been to the Charles and Virginia Hickman Hospital, you’ve seen the big, giant COVID signs where you go back for your COVID testing, and that is where the Drug Take-Back itself will be happening.
Tim Kelly: Yeah. You don’t even have to get out of your car. They drive you right through the tent that they have there. And there’ll be people there to take your medications or inhalers or liquids…
Kathy Williams: Sharps.
Tim Kelly: Or even syringes. Yeah, sharps. They, they can take all that stuff. The only suggestion I’d have is that if you have stuff in a bottle, you remove your name or identifying information from it, but they’ll take it right in the bottle. These are students at the Pharmacy College down at University of Toledo. They will bag it all up and ship it out of here.
Kathy Williams: I did like watching the procedure last year, too, because there were you know, quite a few people that maybe did not mark out their information. And so it’s, it was interesting to watch the students as they sorted everything for “This is a pill, this is a tablet, this is a liquid…” Even the salves and lotions and stuff. And they were very meticulous at making sure the information was marked out or taken out of the original container. And then I found out that all those containers then were incinerated. So if you don’t get it taken care of, they certainly will when you drop off your drugs.
Tim Kelly: Yeah. This being a national event, you know, it’s basically from the DEA and they make sure that everything is very secure. The Lenawee Sheriff’s office will have a couple of deputies out there to make sure. So yeah, you can be pretty confident that all your information is… can be disposed of correctly.
Kathy Williams: Yes. And you know what, the other thing that I kind of want to be sure people realize is that we’re having this in April. We’re also gonna have one in October. Personally, we had a friend who passed away and her husband didn’t know what to do with all her drugs. She had a rather large container in a… like a Tupperware thing.
Tim Kelly: Yeah.
Kathy Williams: And Doug grabbed him and said “My wife will take care of that for you”. So, you know, that’s the kind of thing though, to keep in mind, you know, if you’re emptying out someone else’s house, help them get rid of these things in a good way.
Tim Kelly: Yeah.
Kathy Williams: You can also go on a website, DrugPreventionLenawee.com, and tell us about other disposal sites that you can use throughout the year.
Tim Kelly: Yeah. Most law enforcement offices have what’s known as the Red Barrel that people can dispose of stuff anytime during the year. And it is important to get it out of there, get it out of your house. You know, in Lenawee alone, 52% of the people that abused substances got them from a friend or a relative. And a lot of that was maybe taking from a medicine cabinet or finding something that a family member had had prescribed to them somewhere in the house and using it, so…
Kathy Williams: Right, right. And things that are expired. It just amazed me on last year’s Drug Take-Backs, how many people had expired medications. You don’t save it for the next ear infection because you need new stuff by then.
Tim Kelly: No. Right.
Kathy Williams: So, you know, eardrops, eyedrops, even pet medications can all be disposed of at the Drug Take-Backs. It’s… Make a quick sweep of your house, put it all in a big bag and bring it out to us on Saturday the 30th.
Tim Kelly: Yeah. That… We’d really appreciate it. And then if you can’t, you can take it to those other locations throughout the year.
Kathy Williams: Yeah. Now some… I believe on the, DrugPreventionLenawee.com website and Facebook, it also tells, you know, some of the restrictions that might be involved with some of those other locations throughout the year. Sharps may be one of the things that this is the best way to get rid of those.
Tim Kelly: Yeah. There are restrictions at places like Meijer that do return some things, but, sharps – a number of pharmacies will sell you a container for sharps.
Kathy Williams: Yes.
Tim Kelly: If you need one throughout the year.
Kathy Williams: Also people don’t necessarily think about over the counter medication. That also can be brought. It’s amazing how many expired vitamins we might even have or food supplements, you know, all kinds of things like that. So it, you know, our goal tonight is to kind of put that bug in people’s heads, take a look around, get rid of it. Be happy with the empty spaces in your cupboards maybe.
Tim Kelly: Fill them up with something new, but don’t, just don’t flush them down the toilets or throw them down the garbage disposal.
Kathy Williams: Please don’t.
Tim Kelly: Those types of things end up in the drinking water.
Kathy Williams: Right.
Tim Kelly: They literally soak into the earth.
Kathy Williams: Long-term they… everything is affected.
Tim Kelly: Yeah.
Kathy Williams: Tim, other ways that they can find out information about the Drug Take-Back?
Tim Kelly: You already mentioned it, but the primary way’s through DrugPreventionLenawee.com, or through links on WLEN – on their webpage. So, yeah, those are probably the two prominent ways, but again, throughout the year, contacting law enforcement is a real solid way to figure out where you can drop-off stuff.
Kathy Williams: Alrighty. Well, thanks Tim. We hope to see a lot of people drive by and drop off their drugs. Saturday, April 30th at the ProMedica Hickman Hospital from 10 o’clock to two o’clock. Thanks for being with me.
Tim Kelly: Thank you.
Woman’s Voice: Thank you for listening. This information has been provided by the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition. Supported by funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration. New messages air on the first and third Monday of each month at 6:15 p.m. You can listen to this program as a podcast under the audio tab on WLEN.com and listen and gather more information at DrugPreventionLenawee.com.
