BETTENDORF, Iowa — A permanent safe medication drop box has been added to the lobby of the Bettendorf Police Department, 1609 State Street.
The drop box is made possible through a small grant from the Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy to address the increasing problem of prescription drug abuse.
The drop box will be available to the public 24 hours a day. Residents are asked to remove all personal information from the vials, place medications in a sealed non-breakable container and/or sealed plastic bags. Do not include liquids, syringes or lancets that could harm staff that services the drop box.
“Many people become addicted to prescription drugs because they started using a family member’s leftover prescriptions. Once addicted some of these individuals may then eventually move to heroin to fulfill that addiction,” said Chief Redington in a press release on Wednesday, Dec. 15.