The National Drug Enforcement Agency will hold its next National Drug Take Back Day on Saturday, April 27, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. The goal of this initiative is to provide the public with a safe and convenient method for disposing out-dated, unused or unwanted medications in a nationwide effort to prevent environmental pollution and prescription drug abuse.

Lincoln County will have five collection sites, all of which will be staffed by uniformed law enforcement officers. Please do not leave medications at collection sites outside of scheduled hours.

Prescription and non-prescription medications, over-the-counter substances and medications for pets will be accepted, as well as liquid pharmaceutical products such as cough syrup. All liquid pharmaceuticals should remain in original containers with caps sealed to prevent leakage. Needles and syringes will not be accepted.

No record will be kept nor questions asked regarding dropped-off medications. Participants are encouraged to remove all personal identifying information from prescription labels.

The public is advised to be especially careful in the days leading up to the Drug Take Back Day. Criminals have used these times to try to obtain drugs illegally by posing as members of law enforcement and offering assistance with medication disposal. Never give medications to anyone other than a uniformed law enforcement officer. Notify law enforcement immediately of suspicious behavior, especially unsolicited offers of assistance in discarding medications.

Drug abuse, especially prescription drug abuse, continues to rise in Maine. The state is also experiencing a rise in the overall crime rate. The two are not unconnected. To a drug addict, crime is a means to an end: an inevitable and inescapable necessity.

Drug abuse is an extremely serious and growing problem in the State of Maine. Prescription drug abuse is unequivocally drug abuse. No matter how innocent its beginnings, the end result prescription drug abuse is drug dependency, and from there it is but a short step into full-blown drug addiction with its concomitant cycle of crime and pursuit of ever more dangerous and illegal drugs.