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Residents turned in 64 pounds of prescription medication to the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office and 23 pounds to the Sarasota Police Department during the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) national turn-in event on Saturday, April 26, the offices have announced. Since the Sheriff's Office launched Operation Medicine Cabinet in 2009, the total amount of pharmaceutical drugs turned in has reached the mark of 6,126 pounds, a news release says. Anyone who missed the Saturday event can drop off unused or expired prescrip- tion medication year-round, the Sheriff's Office and Police Department point out. The Sheriff's Office has permanent drop boxes at the Criminal Justice Center, located at 2071 Ringling Blvd. in Sarasota, which is open 24 hours a day; and at the South County office, located at 4531 State Road 776 in Venice, where the hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The Sarasota Police Department headquar- ters has a permanent drop box located in its lobby at 2099 Adams Lane in Sarasota. "While there has been a decline in the num- ber of prescription drug overdose deaths in Sarasota County and a drop in the number of babies born addicted to prescription pain- killers, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office continues educational outreach efforts and promotes drug turn-in opportunities since many misused and abused medication is obtained from home medicine cabinets," the Sheriff's Office news release notes. The Police Department release also reminds the public that flushing medications down the toilet or throwing them in a trash can "be harmful and cause health hazards to humans and animals." Last October, Americans turned in 324 tons (more than 647,000 pounds) of prescription drugs at about 4,114 sites operated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and its thousands of state and local law enforcement partners, the Police Department release adds. Combining those results with the amounts collected in the seven earlier drug take-back events shows the DEA and its partners have taken in more than 3.4 million pounds of pills, the Police Department release says. ABOUT 90 POUNDS OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS TURNED IN LAST WEEK A prescription medication drop-off box is located in the lobby of the Sarasota Police Department on Adams Lane in downtown Sarasota. Contributed photo Sarasota News Leader May 2, 2014 Page 76