National Drug Take Back Event Takes Huge Number of Prescription Drugs Off The Streets

     The Baxter County Sheriff's Office participated in the National Drug Take Back Event, sponsored by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency. The event is designed to give people an opportunity to turn in their old unused prescription and non-prescription medications for disposal. This is the second national event and third overall event Baxter County has participated in.

     Sheriff's Investigators were joined by Dr. Eddie Dry and volunteers, Blake Byers and Maude Case, from his Biology Class at Arkansas State University, Mountain Home. Two locations were manned from 10 am to 2 pm on Saturday. Dozens of people drove up and dropped off their unused prescriptions. Pamphlets concerning the dangers of prescription medications getting into the hands of our youth, and getting into our waterways were handed to the participants.

     For several days prior to Saturday's event, dozens of other people dropped off medications after they heard about the event. Many were unable to come by on Saturday and some didn't want to take a chance of waiting in line. Some of the participants also passed along illegal drug intelligence to investigators as they came through the drop off points.

     Sheriff's Investigators counted and weighed the pills that were dropped off using pill counters that were donated by Magee Pharmacy of Mountain Home. The total numbers that will be turned into the Drug Enforcement are:

143,383 pills, weighing 204.5 pounds

     Last year the Baxter County Sheriff's Office conducted two Drug Take Back Events in July and in September. These two events netted more than 161,000 pills. This makes more than 300,000 prescription and non-prescription pills that have been kept out of the hands of our youth and out of water systems in less than a year. The Sheriff's Office has installed a permanent drop box for the convenience of the residents of Baxter County to be able to drop old or unused prescriptions any time. The permanent Drop Box is located in front of the Criminal Investigation Building on 8th Street in Mountain Home.

We would like to thank everyone who participated today and helped make this event such a huge success..

Sheriff John Montgomery