MANCHESTER, NH – The city has been awarded a grant from CVS/pharmacy to install a drug collection box inside the lobby of the Manchester Police Department. The new box will be located inside the front lobby, which will provide residents with a safe and environmentally responsible way to dispose of unwanted, unused or expired medication, including controlled substances.
The new collection box is intended to reduce the amount of medication inside homes and potentially decrease prescription drug abuse, which has soared in recent years, especially among teenagers. More than 70 percent of teenagers say it is easy to get prescription drugs from their parents’ medicine cabinets, according to a 2014 Partnership for Drug-Free Kids study.
The new collection boxes will also help the city prevent the contamination of local landfills and water supplies from unused medication.
Medicine Abuse Project (MAP) is a five-year national initiative of The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, and the largest retail pharmacy effort of its kind to date. It supports MAP’s goal to prevent a half-million teenagers from abusing prescription medication by the year 2017. CVS/pharmacy is the sole retail pharmacy sponsor of this program, which builds on the company’s Medication Disposal for Safer Communities Program.
Manchester’s drug collection site is available to the public 24/7 and drugs can be dropped off with no questions asked.
