ROANOKE, Va – Saturday is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, offering you a chance to get rid of unwanted or unused prescription medicines that may be cluttering your home.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., you’ll be able to take the prescription drugs to a collection site near you and have them safely disposed of.
This event is intended to raise awareness about the drug overdose epidemic in the U.S., while also urging community members to remove unneeded medications from their homes to prevent medication misuse and the onset of opioid addiction.
As part of the program. The Roanoke City Sheriff’s Department will be having multiple takeback locations tomorrow.
“The way that it works is you drive up, walk up, and if you say I have medication that I’d like to give you to dispose of, we do have special containers for that and so we take it, we dispose, we’re not looking through, you know, oh you gave us a bag of Percocet, or you gave this, or you give us that,” said Tameka Paige, the community relations specialist for the Roanoke City Sheriff’s Office.
The main event will be Saturday at Melrose Plaza from 11 A.M. until 2 P.M. The sheriff’s office will also offer document shredding.
National Prescription Drug Take Back Day happens bi-yearly, once in April and once in October. During the last Take Back Day in October 2024, 4,425 law enforcement participants at 4,644 collection sites across the country brought in a total weight of 629,953 pounds, or 314 tons, of drugs, bringing the total weight collected to 19.2 million pounds, or more than 9,600 tons.
To search for a drop-off location near you, click here.