Downey police to hold prescription drug round up

The Downey Police are holding an out-of-date prescription drug roundup.

Here’s the press release:

Downey Police Department Plans to ‘Take-Back’ Unused and Unwanted
Prescription Drugs on Saturday, September 29th

The Downey Police Department and community volunteers will be collecting unused,
unwanted or out-of-date prescription medications on Saturday, September 29th from
10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. This event offers community members an opportunity to rid their
homes of potentially dangerous drugs and minimize the potential for misuse and abuse.

The collection event will take place at the West Lot of the Downey Police Department,
10911 Brookshire Ave. The event will be held rain or shine.

The event is co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency
(D.E.A.). The D.E.A. is providing the collection boxes and will be responsible for the proper
disposal of the discarded drugs. All of the drugs and containers will be incinerated.

Event attendees will have the option of dropping their prescription medications and
containers into the D.E.A. collection boxes or pouring their prescription medications into D.E.A.
collection boxes and keeping the drug containers.

The dangers of prescription drug abuse will be shared with everyone attending the event
through special brochures.

Prescription drugs discarded into the sanitary sewer system may pose environmental
problems for the ocean and the potable water supply. Water treatment plants are capable of
filtering out nearly all impurities. However, traces of prescription drugs have been found after
the filtration efforts are complete. The recycled water from the filtration plants is sent to
settling basins to re-charge the ground water basins, used for landscape irrigation or released
to the storm drains to flow to the ocean. Before this program was started, there were no legal
means to transfer possession of certain prescription drugs for disposal.