Brooklyn Park Has New Medication Drop Box
There’s a new place to drop off unwanted medications in Brooklyn Park, thanks to the city and North Memorial Health. A drop box inside the Brooklyn Park Police Station on 85th Avenue is available 24-hours a day in order to keep drugs out of landfills and out of the wrong hands.
“No questions asked,” said Brooklyn Park Deputy Police Chief Mark Bruley. “We’re open 24 hours a day. You come in, you put the medicine in the bin shut the door and we will get it properly disposed of. The other benefit of it, a lot of people don’t realize, is do not put it in the toilet or in the water system or in your garbage. Because that finds its way into our landfills or into our drinking water. Or pollutes our rivers or streams and so we do not want that unused medicine into our environment.”
The drop box is inside the Brooklyn Park police station, located at 5400 95th Avenue North.
Fighting the Opioid Crisis
The opioid crisis is a nationwide epidemic that is also impacting the Northwest suburbs. In 2018 there were 152 overdose cases in Brooklyn Park.
Opioid abusers often get their first drugs at home or by raiding the medicine cabinet of a friend or loved one.
“It’s innocent enough,” Bruley said. “We go to the doctor and we may get some pain medicine. We feel better and we don’t take all the pain medicine. Then we put, like everybody does, the bottle back in the medicine cabinet and leave it there. Unfortunately over time those things start to disappear and there’s an interest in the community for them and they end up finding legs and getting out in our community in the wrong hands.”
There are also medicine drop boxes in Brooklyn Center, Golden Valley, Maple Grove and Osseo.
