Johns Hopkins Medical Center helps dispose of unused, expired medicines during National Drug Take-Back Day

BALTIMORE – National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day is on Saturday and in Southeast Baltimore neighbors are disposing of unused, expired, or unwanted medicines. 

Old medication that lies around your home can be harmful if it gets into the wrong hands. 

That's why teams at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center are helping to get rid of inessential medicine at their drug take back event. 

"We're able to dispose of the medications properly and get them out of the home," Olivia Berger, a member of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center said. 

Johns Hopkins is taking part in the fight against the misuse of prescription medications, many of which continue to fuel the nation's opioid epidemic. 

"We're really trying to work within the community to try to help with that crisis," Berger said. 

The process was easy. Those interested just had to simply drop their medications off at the medical center, no questions asked. 

"Once we get them, we go through and separate them and make sure that we de-identify anything on your prescription bottles and we dispose of that separately then the medication themselves," Berger explained. "Once the event is over, the medications are picked up by the DEA and disposed of." 

Teams collected tablets, capsules, liquids, creams, e-cigarettes, vape pens, needles, and more. 

"We make sure they don't get used by someone who is not prescribed those medications and to prevent any harm or preventing children from getting into the medication," Berger said. "Anything like that that might happen if they're just lying around." 

At the spring take-back event in April, Johns Hopkins collected nearly 1,300 pounds of unwanted medications, and 446 community members participated.