Local Hospital Adds Drug Disposal Unit
(Left to Right): Armstrong County Coroner Brian Myers, ARC Manor Executive Director Cindy McCrea, Armstrong County Sheriff Bill Rupert, ACMH Emergency Department Director Rod Groomes, MD, Magisterial District Judge Gary DeComo, District Attorney Scott Andreassi and ACMH President and CEO John Lewis announced the inclusion of a drug collection unit on the ACMH campus earlier this week (submitted photo)
by Jonathan Weaver
ACMH has partnered with Armstrong County District Attorney Scott Andreassi and the PDAA (Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association) to install a drug collection unit on the ACMH campus in East Franklin Township. This unit now gives local residents a safe, environmentally friendly way to dispose of unwanted medication.
The unit is located inside the ACMH Hospital’s main entrance, allowing safe and secure drop off of unused medications from 7:30AM until 8:30PM daily.
The new MedReturn unit is intended to reduce the amount of unneeded medicine in residents’ homes and decrease prescription drug abuse, which has soared in recent years, especially among teenagers. More than 70 percent of teenagers say it is easy to get prescription drugs from their parents’ medicine cabinets, according to a 2014 Partnership for Drug-Free Kids study.
“When you look at cases where people are struggling with drug addiction, prescription drugs are almost always a part of their story,” Armstrong County Sheriff Bill Rupert said in a news release.
County Coroner Brian Myers said the county has already surpassed the 28 overdoses reported in 2015.
“The big issue in Armstrong County is the progression of prescription abuse to heroin,” explained Myers. “We rank second in the state when it comes to drug-related deaths, behind Philadelphia County.”
District Attorney Andreassi said Armstrong County becomes the third county in the state to place a medication return box in a medical facility.
“I would encourage all residents to identify any unused or expired medications in their homes and dispose of them in one of the boxes located in the county,” Andreassi said.
Last weekend, Andreassi encouraged residents to clean out their medicine cabinets and take unused or expired medications to five other collection boxes in the county – including boxes at the Kittanning Borough or Ford City Borough police departments.
Last week, Kittanning Borough Police Chief Bruce Mathews said the Drug Enforcement Administration picked up the most unused or expired prescription medications from the borough’s collection site since it was established in February 2014.
“There was a pick-up (in October) of 96 pounds. We’ve been involved in this program for (nearly) the last three years, and this was the highest (pick up),” Chief Mathews said. “We really see the box being used.”
The boxes can be accessed directly by the public with no questions asked.
Local News | jweaver November 11, 2016
1 Comment
Other Links to this Post
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
By Jerri, November 11, 2016 @ 11:50 AM
This should be a no brainer. If West Shamokin scheduled theirs the whole way back in May and was approved, Armstrong should change their dates. Shame on Venesjy for not having the courtesy to check on this before setting his dates. I’m sure it didn’t even occur to him to remember that there is another school in this district with students just as important as the ones at Armstrong. Their parents pay taxes for his salary just like the Armstrong parents and the grandparents that may have to choose between grandchildren’s plays also. I hope the board uses some common sense and gets this corrected.