Sheriff Glen Kochanowski announced a program "Operation Medicine Cabinet" that the Sheriff's Office is participating in with the local Fire Departments.  The program will be administered by the Sheriff's Office along with assistance of local fire personnel.  All collected medicines will be properly disposed of by incineration.

The program will offer citizens in our area an opportunity to dispose of expired or unwanted drugs by turning them in for proper disposal instead of flushing them or placing them in the trash.  Proper disposal keeps our water safe, keeps drugs out of the landfill and most importantly makes it so children and/or pets can't access medications that are carelessly thrown away in the trash.  Anther benefit of proper disposal prevents illegal use of the drugs or theft of identity from prescription labels.

Citizens participating in this program are ask, if at all possible, to dump your unused/unwanted pills into a glad bag or something similar before bringing to the disposal locations.  If not possible we will dispose of plastic/glass or metal containers for you.

Properly storing and/or disposing of medicine is one way to make sure that visitors to your home (relatives, friends, delivery persons, etc.) do not rifle through your medicine cabinet to feed an addiction or make a profit.  Another product of improper storage of medicines is called a "pharm (farm) party".  To find out more about pharm parties, Google it on your computer.  A pharm party is when young people, high school/college students gather and put numerous drugs that they have gathered (stolen) from various people's medicine cabinets into a large bowl and everyone then just takes a handful and ingests them.  This is called trail mix because of the many unidentified colorful drugs.  This dangerous venture has caused overdose deaths across the county.

Abuse of prescription drugs is growing at an alarming rate across the country and you can do your part by making sure your medicines in your home are properly secured and accounted for.  Remember some drugs can look like candy to a youngster and then the next thing you know you have an overdosed child or grandchild on your hands.  Please store or dispose of medicine in the proper way.

We will continue to collect your unwanted/unused medicines at the Sheriff's Office Monday through Friday from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.