MERIDIAN, Idaho — National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is on Saturday, April 27. Pharmacy students from Idaho State University are helping people safely dispose of their unwanted drugs in Meridian
- If you missed the drive-thru event, you can search for a year-round drop off location here.
- Meridian's Spring Prescription Drug Take-Back events usually collect 700-1,000 pounds of prescription medicine.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
“Hi there! How are you?"
Pharmacy students from Idaho State University are taking unwanted prescription drugs in exchange for answering a couple questions.
"Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions? So the first one is, how did you hear about this today?"
Pharmacy student Dylan Krupp helped coordinate the effort between Idaho State University and the Meridian Anti-Drug Coalition.
“It’s a good experience to be able to interact with community members," Krupp said. "It’s a way to, you know, really solidify that bond between ISU, as well as Meridian Anti-Drug Coalition."
Krupp says that events like this give students a chance to interact with the community.
“We’re giving them the opportunity to get volunteer hours, get into the community, be able to see how this kind of impacts others and be able to see how prevalent drug these can be,” Krupp said.
He went on to tell me that a goal of this event is to help people do the right thing with their unwanted medication.
“Oftentimes we don’t know where to take, you know, unused medications," Krupp said. "Not all medications are gonna be something that somebody is abusing, but it can definitely lead to harm. So it’s good for students to get involved in that."
Kendall Nagy is the Meridian Anti-Drug Coalition Director. She says events like this help serve the community.
“People are very appreciative of us holding this event," Nagy said. "It makes it nice so that we’re out in the community. We do the events twice a year at different locations so we’re closer to different community members."
They hold events like this once in the spring, then again in the fall.
“In the spring, we have a larger participation," Nagy said. "We get anywhere from 700 to 1000 pounds of prescription meds taken back and then in the fall we average about half of that."
“Oh, any time that we can prevent any addiction or overdose that might happen because of left over medications, just one of those makes it totally worthwhile to host events like this,” said Steve Olson, Vice President of Pharmacy at Blue Cross of Idaho.
