Sandy Hunt drops of a bag of prescription drugs. Covering Katy photo
KATY, TX (Covering Katy) – The Katy Independent School District Police Department teamed up with the Drug Enforcement Administration for a prescription drug return event Saturday. People came for various reasons but the biggest among them was a desire to keep the drugs out of the waste stream.
Sgt. Tom Donaldson of the Katy ISD Police Department with numerous trash bags full of prescription drugs.
Covering Katy photo-Dennis Spellman
“Well they were just sitting in my cabinet and they were just getting older and older,” said Sam Owens of Katy.
Katy ISD police officers spend their time focusing on school children and they want to keep unused prescription drugs from getting into the hands of those who may use them recreationally. That was the focus of the police and DEA officer who took part in the event.
According to an article in HealthDay News that was republished by WebMD The United States appears to be in the throes of a prescription drug abuse crisis among teens, with a new survey showing that 24 percent of high school students — more than 5 million kids — have abused these medications.
That’s a 33 percent increase from 2008, the survey authors noted. They said that 13 percent of teens acknowledged having experimented at least once with either Ritalin or Adderall (normally prescribed for the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD) that was not prescribed for them.
What’s more, 20 percent of teens who admit they have abused prescription drugs said their first experience doing so was before the age of 14, with 27 percent mistakenly believing that prescription drug abuse is safer than “street drugs,” such as cocaine or ecstasy.
The findings stem from a nationally representative poll launched in 2012 by The Partnership at Drugfree.org, in conjunction with the MetLife Foundation. The survey involved nearly 3,900 teens currently enrolled in grades 9 through 12 at public, private and parochial schools, along with more than 800 parents who participated in at-home interviews.
For one woman who traveled from Cypress dropping off medications was part of the closure process after the death of her husband.
“My husband passed about 6 months ago and he was on different medications and I checked with different pharmacies and they just would not take them, ” said Sandy Hunt. “I didn’t want to just throw them in the trash can,” she added.
Katy ISD Police host a drug drop-off event twice a year.
Katy ISD Prescription Drug Drop-Off A Success was originally published on news92fm.com
