ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — The City of South Fulton, along with Fulton County, are working to safely remove unused and expired medications from homes across the community.
The goal was to prevent misuse, accidental poisoning and even environmental contamination when people pour unwanted pills down the drain.
By the end of the event, they’d collected three boxes full of medication.
The result of South Fulton’s prescription drug take back event Thursday(WANF)
“I’m all about wellness because once you have a healthy community, everything goes well, so that’s my purpose,” said South Fulton Mayor Carmalitha Gumbs.
Hosted by Gumbs and the Fulton County Deflection and Diversion Program, the effort aims to keep these pills out of the wrong hands.
“Because the opioid pandemic kind of really stemmed from those prescriptions that are usually found in the home,” said Gale Livingstone, program director.
Livingston said it’s also important that this medicine is disposed of in the right way, instead of throwing them in the trashcan or even dumping it down the drain.
“That is an issue with our water supply and so that, when they’re throwing it down the sink, now the people or the individuals in Public Works have to do more chemical treatments to the water supply order to get some of those impurities out,” said Livingston.
Looking at the national drug take back days, the Drug Enforcement Administration says since 2016, they’ve collected 224,000 pounds of medication from Georgia alone.
Here in South Fulton, Livingstone said they gave out Narcan and lockboxes for medication to amplify safety.
“Individuals that may have some substance use disorder or even children experimenting uses that access that they have in the home to actually start experimenting, or use or even sell because some particular drugs have a high market value,” said Livingstone.
If you weren’t able to get to the take back event, there are drop off locations throughout Fulton County that are available year round, you can find that list here.
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