The goals of National Drug Take Back Day will help keep the Star City cleaner and safer

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – National Drug Take Back Day is not just an opportunity to get rid of old prescriptions that fill a medicine cabinet. It’s also a way to keep our environment cleaner and our people safer.

Roanoke Fire-EMS said overdoses are estimated to have decreased by 50% between August and September of this year.

But there are still overdoses and a national opioid crisis.

“We’re really trying to help all of our teens, our parents and the community understand that it’s very clear that it only takes one, and we don’t know where this fentanyl is, so we have to be very, very careful. and really educate,” says Nancy Hans, the executive director of Partnership and community well-being.

Drug Take Back Day is one of those ways to educate the community and reduce the number of non-fatal overdoses in Roanoke.

A card from the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) shows Roanoke City has a “much higher than average” rate of nonfatal drug overdoses.

The DEA’s national initiative encourages people to get rid of old or unused prescription medications that LewisGale Director of Pharmacy Services Derrick Botkins said can be dangerous.

“It’s a way to get medications that you no longer need out of your medicine cabinet, out of your cupboard. It keeps them out of the hands of people who don’t need them,” he said.

Improper disposal of medications, such as throwing them away, can result in these medications entering our water systems.

Hans said it can also intentionally or accidentally give children access to those medications.

“If you have them and you have to throw them away because you don’t use them anymore, because it’s so scary for them to end up in the hands of little children or (or the) wrong person, and we really have to help preserve them safe,” says Hans.

‘It’s just bad to do drugs. . . It’s not really just fun and it’s and it’s hard for you, and it’s not so, good for you. It might put a strain on your body,” Botkins’ daughter, Macy, said.

When people turn in their expired and old prescriptions, they are collected by local law enforcement agencies and later sent to the DEA to be burned.

“The medicines will be destroyed. And hopefully, in a few years, hopefully the drugs will be gone,” Macy said.