A green drop box sits in the lobby of the Dublin Police Department to combat one of the greatest drug risks to the county: expired and unneeded medication.
The drop box was installed in cooperation with Star Council’s Erath County Community Coalition (EC3), who also has dropoff locations at the Stephenville Police Department and Tanglewood Pharmacy in Stephenville.
According to EC3, Erath County has the highest percentage of children with no medical insurance in Region 3 (a 19-county region which also includes Dallas, Denton and Tarrant).
Star Council reports that only 14 percent of children in Erath are insured, which presents a risk factor of medication misuse as families with limited access to health care may self-medicate or reuse old prescriptions to fix an ailment.
EC3 defines misuse as using the medication for anything other than what it was prescribed for, sharing it with someone else with/ without good intentions, stealing it, and mixing it with something else to get high.
“We have known through research that most people who abuse drugs do so for the first time with medications found in the home either from old prescriptions or from someone else’s prescription,” said Star Council Community Coalition Coordinator Shelby Williamson. “When we encourage people to drop off old medications either left over from a prescription or expired it decreases the risk of misuse of the medication.”
EC3 reported that Erath County had 18 drug/ narcotic arrests during the last reporting period, equating to more than one per month.
In our region, the ratio of prescription medications are 130,000 prescriptions to every 100,000 people. The ratio increases in Erath County to 145,000 prescriptions to every 100,000 people. This increases access to medications substantially. This means that on average each person in our county is prescribed between one and two prescriptions each. “One of the things that EC3 takes initiative to present on is how to safely store medications in the home to decrease the risk of medications being misused or stolen,” said Williamson.
In Region 3, students identified Xanax specifically as a medication abused. EC3 describes Xanax as a benzodiazepine that is highly addictive.
“Xanax (benzos in general) when mixed with alcohol or other substances can greatly increase the risk of an adverse reaction or overdose,” said Williamson “Alcohol and benzos both act as a depressant, so taking these together can be especially dangerous.”
For more information on Star Council, EC3 and their efforts, call 965-5515 or visit starcouncil.org