ACPHS participated Saturday in Prescription Drug Take Back Day, organized nationally by the Drug Enforcement Administration, as the sole collection site for the City of Albany.
The goal of Take Back Day, as it’s called, is to improve the safety of households by removing expired drugs from medicine cabinets and also the safety of the community by ensuring no prescriptions make it to the streets to be improperly used. Opioid painkillers are among medications specifically targeted for disposal amid a continuing epidemic of addiction and overdose.
Student organizers Rachel Leffler and Lindsey Lakos co-chair the Operation Substance Use Disorders project of APhA-ASP and spent the last two months putting the campus event together. The P3 students said they were excited to participate in the event, after a three-year hiatus due to COVID-19.
“I’m passionate about raising awareness of the opioid epidemic,” Leffler said.
Lakos said she had not known about Take Back Day until getting involved as co-chair. She said her participation would help her “become a better pharmacist when it comes to substance use disorders.”
ACPHS resident Kara Olstad supervised the event.
The College site collected about 30 pounds of medication. Two large shopping bags full of medications were delivered by just one of the people who came by; she saw a notice about it this week and collected from friends and neighbors.