READING, Pa. – A prescription drug take back event will be held this weekend in Reading.<\/p>\n
It will take place at the R-Phils stadium parking lot and is a drive through event that gives folks the opportunity to get rid of any old or unwanted medications in a safe way.<\/p>\n
“So, there’s a lot of different reasons why we want to make sure that we don’t have unused or expired meds just laying around,” said Jaclyn Steed, COCA Drug & Alcohol Assistant Administrator.<\/p>\n
The multi-organization drug take back event is part of a bigger mission, one that promotes healthy people, a safe environment, and prevents addiction.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes it’s teenagers who are curious, sometimes it’s older adults who might not be able to keep track of their meds very well and might misuse them different times or take too much, too early,” explained Steed.<\/p>\n
It’s also important for the environment to make sure you’re properly disposing of medications, so don’t flush them down the toilet or throw them directly in the trash.<\/p>\n
Around Berks County there are 24 drug disposal boxes at police departments where people can get rid of old meds all year long, and if you are homebound or can’t get out easily, there are special medication disposal bags.<\/p>\n
“We can accept any kind of prescription whether it’s pills, capsules, patches, even over the counter drugs. Pet medications, also,” Steed said. “What we can’t take are syringes or any kind of sharps.”<\/p>\n
She tells WFMZ that doctors and health systems have done a better job in recent years of making sure not to over-prescribe meds, but it’s important for people to be their own advocates, ask questions and make sure to follow directions for taking prescribed medications.<\/p>\n
She says events like the one this weekend are frequently well attended.<\/p>\n
“There [are] pretty many people who come through,” said Steed. “There’s a line already, at like 7:30, usually every year.”<\/p>\n
They have tickets to a future R-Phils game for the first 5,000 people who come through and drop medication off.<\/p>\n
The event will run from 8:00 to 11:00 am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – A prescription drug take back event will be held this weekend in Reading. It will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,58994,45887,78220,33404,28,30110,736,128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-174366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-drug-disposal","10":"tag-medication","11":"tag-over-the-counter-drug","12":"tag-patient-safety","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-prescription-drug","15":"tag-reading","16":"tag-reading-city","17":"tag-reading-city-headlines","18":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}