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Sheriff's Office Prescribes Solution

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By PAUL CATALA pcatala@mediageneral.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 31, 2008

Almost everyone has them: old, expired or unneeded prescription drugs sitting in pill bottles around the house.

Oftentimes, the contents of those containers - pills to ease physical pain or settle emotional problems -- end up down the toilet and out into water systems. Other times, they're stolen and abused for personal use or resold. However, a program used countywide that originated in Sun City Center has kept a lot of expired and unused prescription drugs and controlled substances out of the water system and out of the wrong hands.

Called "Operation Medicine Cabinet," the program allows residents to turn in expired or un-needed prescription drugs and have them disposed of.

Sponsored by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Home Instead Senior Care's "Senior Living Options" and Sun Towers Retirement Community, Operation Medicine Cabinet has held five collections in the past three years. In its first year, 190 pounds of unneeded drugs were turned into the sheriff's office; on Dec. 5, the last date of collection, 277 pounds were collected.

The program has since expanded to three other Hillsborough County communities: Temple Terrace, New Tampa and Town 'N Country.

Coordinated by HCSO Dep. Rob Thornton, Lea Kerr, community service representative for Home Instead and Chelsea Veeneman, director of business development for Sun Towers, the program is open to anyoneThornton, a community resource deputy, said the drug collections take place at Community Hall, 1910 S. Pebble Beach Blvd From there, they're taken to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office on Falkenburg Road where they are weighed, held until a court order is released and burned in an incinerator. "I love the program for a lot of reasons," said Thornton. "I found out where the drugs go in the water system when people dump them. They can't filter for drugs and that scared the daylights out of me."

In another instance, Thornton said a pest control worker was taking prescription painkillers from medicine cabinets. The man was caught.

Kerr said the drug turn-in program started as a Senior Living Options community outreach program and has benefitted the environment, kept homes safer, helped keep people with medication mismanagement issues stay out of trouble and kept drugs out of the hands of teenagers.

The next Operation Medicine Cabinet is scheduled from 8 a.m. to noon, April 10, at Community Hall. For information, call the security patrol office, (813) 642-2020.

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