It’s time to clean out your medicine cabinet.
Many prescription drugs are as dangerous and addictive as street drugs, so you don’t want to keep them around without a good reason, especially if you have kids.
Six of 10 teens agree that drugs are easy to get from parents’ medicine cabinets, according to The Partnership for a Drug Free America.
But, you might be wondering, what is the best way to dispose of these chemicals?
Do not flush them down the toilet: They’ll end up polluting local waterways.
Do not crush or dilute the drugs and mix them with cat litter, as some health authorities have suggested. It is not safe to crush drugs because of a risk of skin irritation or accidental inhalation. Also, medicine is not supposed to go in the garbage in Snohomish County.
Fortunately, Snohomish County has one of the most extensive medicine-return programs in the country.
Residents can take a variety of unwanted medications, including prescription narcotics, to 28 local police departments. If you don’t need to unload narcotics or controlled substances such as Vicodin and OxyContin, you can take your unused drugs to one of five pharmacies in the area:
Bartell Drugs: 23028 100th Ave. W., Edmonds; Frontier Village, 621 Highway 9, Lake Stevens; 17633 Highway 99, Lynnwood.
Group Health Cooperative: 2930 Maple St., Everett; 20200 54th Ave. W., Lynnwood.
They will accept prescription and over-the-counter medications and samples, medications for pets, medicated ointments and lotions, vitamins, inhalers and unopened EpiPens.
They will not accept needles or syringes, thermometers, IV bags, personal care products such as toothpaste, hydrogen peroxide, aerosol cans, used EpiPens, iodine solutions or empty drug containers.
Narcotics: Participating pharmacies and police stations accept a variety of drugs, but narcotics are accepted only at police stations.
Black out personal information on containers, but not the name of the medication.
Learn more
Search www.snoco.org for “unwanted medication” for a complete list of police-station drop-off sites as well as where to take needles, syringes and other hazardous medical supplies in Snohomish County.
If you do not have Internet access, call the unwanted-medicine hotline for recorded information at 425-388-3199.
Find medicine-return programs that serve the rest of the region at www.medicinereturn.com.
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