SAN BENITO — Residents will now have a safe and secure way to dispose of expired medication and controlled substances.
The city of San Benito has received a grant from CVS in the Community to install a drug collection unit outside of the San Benito police station.
According to the CVS website, the program allows law enforcement agencies to install medication disposal units to help residents get rid of unwanted medications that may lead to an addiction or contaminate the water supply.
Police chief Michael Galvan said the drop-off unit will allow residents to have access to proper disposal of narcotics all year.
In the past, the department has teamed up with the DEA to participate in the National Prescription Drug Take Back Day that collected unused and expired prescription medication.
Galvan said that only offered a solution once a year and was geared toward prescription medication only.
“That’s 364 days a year that they are living with these medications and drugs in their home,” Galvan said.
He said the majority of the medications and narcotics the department sees come from families with deceased loved ones.
“A lot of the times you have medications left behind, unused by someone who has passed away and they don’t know what to do with it,” Galvan said.
He said before the unit, there was no set system in place for residents to drop off narcotics throughout the year.
“Residents would come in and we really didn’t have a place for it but we couldn’t leave them with it,” Galvan said.
Prescription drugs and controlled substances can be dropped off any time of day at the station with no questions asked.
“We’ll see to it that it is destroyed properly,” Galvan said. “It is not recommended and not healthy to keep them around and not a good idea to flush them either.”
Galvan said the department will tag and process everything that gets dropped off.
From there, narcotics will be destroyed and properly disposed of.
“We’re trying to get all these prescription drugs off the street,” Galvan said. “It’s not safe.”