Prescription medications will be collected in Howell

HOWELL — It is time to clean out the medicine cabinet and chuck those empty pill bottles — Howell residents will soon have a safe place to scrap their unwanted and unneeded prescription medication.

The township will be setting up a medicine collection site on Nov. 14 at the Howell Alliance/Police Athletic League (PAL) building, 450 Adelphia Road (Route 524), Howell, as part of the first statewide medicine disposal day in the nation.

The project, dubbed Operation Medicine Cabinet New Jersey, was launched through the combined effort of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New Jersey Division (DEA), the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General and the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey (PDFNJ) in order to encourage residents to properly dispose of unused, unwanted and expired medicine.

More than 250 New Jersey police departments are participating in the initiative, including every police department in Monmouth County.

But Operation Medicine Cabinet was not solely created for basic education about pill-dumping etiquette. The impetus behind the program lies in the growing trend of prescription drug misuse and abuse among New Jersey youth.

According to DEA Special Agent in Charge Gerard McAleer and PDFNJ Executive Director Angelo Valente, medicine cabinets have become hot spots for prescription drug access. Young people are likely to obtain these drugs from their friends and family just by searching their prescription collections, they said.

McAleer and Valente cited a 2007 study by the National Study of Drug Use and Health which found that 70 percent of people who abuse prescription pain relievers say they got them from friends or relatives. They also noted that the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) reports that upwards of 9 million people use prescription medication for nonmedical uses.

"It's unfortunately a problem with young people today," Howell Municipal Alliance director and event coordinator Ralph Hoffman said. "This is a good opportunity to shed light on the issue of youths taking medicine out of cabinets at home, right under their parents' noses. There's been overdoses, accidents — but it's a difficult problem to tackle since most of it is off the street."

Hoffman explained that the community event, which will take place between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., is the culminated undertaking of not only state agencies but of several local organizations as well. Howell Municipal Alliance, PAL, Howell Police Department and various township officials and community leaders have joined forces to execute Operation Medicine Cabinet.

"A lot of the community is participating, and the medicine disposal has been very well planned," he said. "It's a new program, but hopefully it will be a success. The point is to get meds out of the home and into a safe place."

According to Hoffman, selected officers from each municipal police department in the county gathered at the Monmouth County Police Academy in Freehold Township on Nov. 2 for a DEA presentation about the initiative and to obtain official drug collection boxes. The boxes were then transported from the police department to the Howell Alliance/ PAL building and will be held there until collection day.

On medicine disposal day, Nov. 14, there will be a significant law enforcement personnel presence at the Route 524 site in order to monitor the discarded medications, but people who drop off medications will not be questioned.

"This program is anonymous," Hoffman said. "There is no counting or logging in. You could drop in a bottle or throw loose pills in there. We just recommend that you take the label off your bottle. We want you to keep your anonymity. We don't want to know who you are."

Hoffman said all medications will be accepted — the only restrictions are no syringes or other sharp objects. People dropping off medications should make sure that caps are sealed on liquid prescriptions. In addition to collection boxes, there will be educational materials available about prescription drug abuse prevention.

"It's an in-and-out kind of event that will only take a few minutes. We're not looking to keep you there. All we ask is that residents maybe pick up a prevention pamphlet on the way out," he said.

Following the event, the collection boxes will be sealed and transported by an officer back to the Howell Police Department, where they will be held in an evidence locker until they are brought back to the Monmouth County Police Academy. DEA officials will be picking up all of the collection boxes from the police academy on Nov. 16.

"We hope to get a pretty large turnout. There's been so many people working hard to make this program a success," Hoffman said. "It's the first prescription medication project facilitated in not just New Jersey, but the entire country. This is all very new, but hopefully it's well received and residents use this opportunity."

The Nov. 14 event in Howell will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Howell Alliance/PAL building, 450 Adelphia Road, either inside or outside depending on the weather. Residents interested in obtaining information about the abuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs and local collection location information can visit www.operationmedicinecabinetnj. com.