On Saturday, there will be a Drug Take Back event held in Washington C.H. Members of the community are invited to clear out all unneeded and unwanted drugs from their medicine cabinets and bring them to one of two drop-off locations.

The locations are the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office Annex at 110 W. Market St. and the Kroger parking lot at 548 Clinton Ave. Drugs can be dropped off between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Tiffany Spangler, prevention coordinator at Community Action Commission of Fayette County, said it is important for people to turn in drugs they no longer need because drugs left in medicine cabinets are frequently stolen and abused. In fact, according to U.S. News and World Report, 24 percent of high school students admit to having abused prescription drugs, and about half of these teens admitted to getting the drugs from their parents’ medicine cabinets.

Although getting rid of unneeded drugs is clearly important, Spangler stressed that it is vital that these drugs be disposed of properly. Throwing them away or flushing them down the toilet may seem like a simple solution, but doing so can harm wildlife and the environment.

The drugs brought to the Take Back event will be disposed of properly, so that they can not harm people or the environment.

This will be the Prevention Coalition’s third Drug Take Back event of the year. The previous two events collected a total of 50 pounds of drugs. That’s a significant increase from the 22 pounds collected in 2017.

Spangler hopes to continue to see an increase in the amount of drugs taken back from the community. She said, “The coalition would definitely like all the community members to participate.”