In honor of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Take Back Day on April 24, Fairfield CARES will host a Drug Take Back event in Fairfield from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. The Medication Drop Box is located in the entryway to the Fairfield Police Department.
Community members are invited to bring their unwanted, expired and unneeded medication to the drop-off box. There will be no forms required to be filled out in order to drop off medications.
Beyond this, vapes with batteries removed are also accepted at the drop-off box.
All collected medications are disposed through an established process run by the Fairfield Police Department in conjunction with the DEA.
Fairfield CARES is the designated prevention council for the town of Fairfield whose “vision is for a community that promotes healthy, responsible choices through prevention and education for youth, young adults and families” according to Fairfield CARES Programming Coordinator Reini Knorr, who represents the media sector.
The organization works with other local prevention councils to educate and prevent the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs (ATOD). Specifically, these prevention councils focus primarily on increasing public awareness of ATOD within the youth.
“It starts with mental health support,” Knorr said. “Usually, there is some sort of negative feeling or wanting to feel better that makes them curious to try a substance and it is a goal of our’s to reduce substance abuse.”
Knorr stated that this is a bi-annual event that takes place each April and October to increase awareness of the medication drop box and to safely discard unused and unwanted medications as it will prevent accidental poisoning, death or unintended use.
Though the event happens only twice a year, the medication drop box is available any day and time throughout the year.
“Flushing of medication can affect water and fish life,” Knorr said. “Simply putting medications in the trash can result in them being diverted or accidentally ingested by people or animals.”
When asked if the group ever considered partnering with Fairfield University for one of these events, Knorr referenced the fact that there are “stringent oversight procedures in place” due to the event being a collection of controlled substances. This means that “campus security/social services would have to work with the DEA Diversion Division to establish a collection site on campus.”
Fairfield CARES tagline is “The Town Resource for Healthy Choices” and they hope events like this will assist the community in making those healthy decisions.
In 2020, there were 1,359 fatal drug overdoses in Connecticut — “1,359 too many,” said Knorr.
Learn more about the event and other Fairfield CARES events @fairfield_cares on Instagram or by emailing them at fairfieldcares@fairfieldct.org
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