Moorhead Police Battle the Opioid Problem At Its Source

Do you have any unwanted prescription medications lying around the house?

Well, Moorhead Police were out this afternoon helping locals dispose of their old medicine.

Moorhead police set up shop outside of two Hornbacher’s locations in the city between 9 am and 4pm.

In that time they collected at least 100 pounds of old medications.

They host these events a few times a year and when you do the math, that’s a lot of medication.

“We’re taking, you know, one or two thousand pounds of drugs off the streets in a year,” says Moorhead Police Chief David Ebinger.

Getting rid of old narcotic medicines is an important part of combating the opioid problem in the community.

“A lot of that started with prescription medicines that weren’t used that were left around and individuals had access to it either for self–medicating or for narcotics sales,” says Chief Ebinger.

Some might wonder why you can’t just toss the old stuff in trash.

It can contaminate the water sources and harm the environment so it’s best to take them to drop off locations like this.

“They’re disposed of in a safe manor. They’re incinerated and you don’t put this back in the ecosystem,” says Chief Ebinger

“We’ve always learned that it’s not right to throw them down the toilet or down your drain and this way we know for sure it’s going to be disposed of in a proper manner,” says Moorhead Local Tony Maritato.

These events are a great way to get rid of your unwanted medication, but they’re only held two or three times a year and any other time, you can just go to the Moorhead Police Station, drop off your medication and they’ll dispose of it.

And that service is available at all times.

Some people passing by the event got inspired to take advantage of the service.

“I don’t have to think ‘oh gosh I’ve got to keep them in this bag,’ because I know not to throw them in the garbage. So now I know I can go down to the station and drop them off,” says Moorhead Local Wendy Mcquay.

Moorhead Police say they plan on holding another one of these drop off events in a few months.

The final count of boxes full of medication collected was about equal to previous drives.