ROGERS - Law enforcement officers and volunteers across the country stood ready Saturday to accept unused prescription drugs as part of National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, a program organized through the federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s Office of Diversion Control.

Saturday was the sixth event for the national takeback program, which began in 2010, according to the administration’s website. The program, which is held twice a year, collected more than 2 million pounds of prescription drugs nationwide during its first five events.

There was no shortage of participation in Northwest Arkansas, with about 50 collection sites scattered from as far northeast as Flippin and as far southwest as Waldron. More than a dozen collection sites were posted throughout the metropolitan area between Fayetteville and Bella Vista.

Bags, boxes and handfuls of medications began quickly streaming in during the first minutes of the event at the temporary collection site in the parking lot outside the Mercy Medical Center in northwest Rogers. By 9:45 a.m.-15 minutes before volunteers were even ready to begin accepting unwanted medications-a line of cars seven deep sat idling in front of the collection tent, said Megan Cuddy, vice-president of community developmentfor the Rogers-Lowell Chamber of Commerce.

The collection point at Mercy Medical was staffed by Benton County sheriff’s deputies, Rogers Police Department officers, and volunteers, including Cuddy.

Cuddy is also an organizer with Drug Free Rogers-Lowell, an outreach program that has received federal grant funding since 2002. The program currently receives $125,000 a year, Cuddy said.

“The biggest reason we participate in the take-back program is to keep [medication] out of the wrong hands,” Cuddy said. “Disposing of prescription drugs is one of our biggest problems. You can’t flush them, you can’t put them in the trashand pharmacies won’t take them back.”

Benton County Sheriff ’s Deputy Susan Hall said the collected drugs would later be taken to the sheriff’s station in Bentonville. Drugs throughout the area will be transported to Tulsa, where they will be incinerated.

By 10:30 a.m., one of the collection point’s five 50-gallon collection tubs was nearly full, and another was about half full. A 1.7-gallon plastic detergent bottle was half-filled with discarded hypodermic needles.

Many times, individuals turn in medications that had been prescribed to an ailing family member who had since died, said volunteer Rick McCleod, a supporter of Drug-Free Rogers Lowell for more than a decade.

“It’s the most common thing we see here,” McLeod said. “It’s medication left over after the death of a family member.”

Often, unused medications are simply forgotten in the home after they’re no longer being used. Janice Rankin of Rogers hauled in plastic bags containing several small bottles of pills thathad belonged to her husband of 33 years, Ralph, who died of cancer in 2011.

“It just kept getting pushed to the back of my medicine cabinet,” Rankin said.

While the collection point set up at Mercy Medical was temporary, many collection sites throughout Northwest Arkansas are permanent. Most of the permanent collection sites are at law enforcement agencies, including the Benton County sheriff’s office.

More information on take-back locations can be found at www.artakeback. org.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 17 on 04/28/2013