Base Drug Take-Back Day Saturday Published April 27, 2012 By Mike W. Ray Tinker Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE. -- If you have an expired prescription medication or an out-of-date bottle of aspirin in your medicine cabinet, don't toss it in the trash or flush it down the toilet. Instead, bring it to the Base Exchange on Saturday, during National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. The April 28 observance is an opportunity for individuals to turn in their medications for safe disposal in a no-questions-asked environment. The collection site will be operated from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Present at the event will be a drug enforcement agent, along with 72nd Air Base Wing Security Forces and Tinker AFB Pharmacy staff personnel. "We'll be accepting unused or expired controlled and non-controlled drugs and over-the-counter medications," said Capt. Lakisha Roe, a 72nd Medical Group pharmacist. The medications will be collected in a box that ultimately will be sealed and incinerated by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, she said. Syringes, IV solutions and injectibles will not be accepted, "because they contain blood-borne pathogens," explained Capt. Deborah Faucette-Morales, Pharmacy Services chief. However, those items can be disposed of in either used milk cartons or sharps containers that can be purchased from any retail pharmacy, she said. The DEA points out that unused or expired prescription medications are "a public safety issue, leading to accidental poisoning, overdose and abuse." Pharmaceutical drugs "can be just as dangerous as street drugs when taken without a prescription or a doctor's supervision," the DEA warns. The agency also reports that most teenagers who abuse prescription drugs "get them from family and friends -- and the home medicine cabinet." "Oklahoma leads the nation in drug overdoses and narcotic drug abuse," Captain Faucette-Morales noted. Unused drugs that are thrown into the trash can be retrieved and abused or illegally sold, the DEA observed. In addition, drugs that are flushed into the sewer system contaminate water supplies and are suspected of causing deformities in wildlife such as frogs and fish. Besides the Prescription Drug Take-Back event Saturday at the BX, unused drugs can be dropped off at various law-enforcement offices across the state, Tech. Sgt. LaTonya Reno of the 72nd Medical Group said. Those include the Bethany, Choctaw, Edmond, Guthrie, Moore, Mustang and Norman Police Departments; Oklahoma County Sheriff's offices in Oklahoma City, Midwest City and Edmond; the Logan County Sheriff's Office in Guthrie; and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control office in Oklahoma City.