To strengthen efforts to prevent prescription drug abuse among the youth, federal and local agencies are teaming up to support the National Take Back Initiative and the Red Ribbon Campaign this month.<\/p>\n
U.S. Attorney for the Guam and CNMI Districts Alicia A.G. Limtiaco said in a news briefing yesterday that that they will hold the second National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day on Oct. 29, from 10am to 2pm at the Horiguchi Building parking lot in Garapan. <\/p>\n
A similar event will also be held on Tinian and Rota at their respective health centers.<\/p>\n
The event, which is part of the National Take Back Initiative, aims to provide a location where people can bring their unused or expired prescription drugs for proper disposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ask everyone to go in their medicine cabinets and pull out expired, unwanted or unneeded prescription drugs so that children don\u2019t get access to them,\u201d said Drug Enforcement Agency agent-in-charge Mike Puralewski, who also noted that proper disposal of drugs entails more than just \u201cflushing\u201d them down the drain.<\/p>\n
According to Puralewski, any child\u2019s parents and other relatives \u201cmay be their child\u2019s drug dealer by not securing those dangerous items.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anthony Raho, director of pharmacy at the Commonwealth Health Center, reinforced the growing health concerns on prescription medication abuse and its dangers to children and the rest of the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d like to make the community aware of this concern,\u201d said Raho, adding that even medications in patch forms still pose potential risks to any child or adult who comes in contact with it since they also contain active drugs. <\/p>\n
Puralewski emphasized that the National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day event is anonymous.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll you have to do is bring the prescription bottle over to the collection location. Nobody is going to ask you any questions. No questions asked at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Puralewski said the first National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, held last April 30, amassed \u201cwell over 100 lbs\u201d of unused or expired prescription drugs in the Commonwealth. \u201cIt was a very successful program,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Limtiaco also advised the community of steps that will stop prescription drug abuse, including removing these prescription drugs from medicine cabinets \u201cand locking them if necessary\u201d as well as taking inventory of all medications in the house \u201cand taking note if anything has been missing.”<\/p>\n
If your child has been prescribed by the doctor with medications, Limtiaco said that parents should monitor refills and dosages and should \u201cset clear rules\u201d like not sharing, selling, or handing them to anyone.<\/p>\n
Limtiaco also underscored the importance of warning one\u2019s children and family members about the dangers of taking prescription medication.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe encourage parents to be responsible in terms of making sure that all prescription drugs are put in a safe place and if they\u2019re not in use or not needed anymore, they should be disposed of properly to protect our children from accessing these drugs which may lead to them being harmed,\u201d said Public Safety Commissioner Ray Mafnas.<\/p>\n
[B]Red Ribbon Campaign[\/B]<\/p>\n
Limtiaco said that from Oct. 23 to 31, the CNMI will also participate in the Red Ribbon Campaign, the oldest and largest drug prevention campaign in the U.S.<\/p>\n
The campaign commemorates DEA special agent Enrique \u201cKiki\u201d Camarena who died in 1985 while doing undercover work investigating a major drug cartel in Mexico.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s theme is \u201cIt\u2019s up to me to be drug-free.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt speaks to the community\u2019s need to work together to prevent drug abuse and most especially drug abuse amongst our youth,\u201d said Limtiaco.<\/p>\n
Limtiaco said they are looking at conducting drug prevention presentations in CNMI schools. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To strengthen efforts to prevent prescription drug abuse among the youth, federal and local agencies are teaming up to support the National Take Back Initiative and the Red Ribbon Campaign this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}