Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato today announced that the concerted efforts of Ocean County Law Enforcement and residents continue to bring great success in disposing of unused prescription medications.

On Wednesday (3/1) OCPO broke the pill burn record by supervising the safe disposal of 3,280 lbs of unused prescription meds. Since the programs start in the summer of 2014, Twenty Two Thousand Three Hundred Eighty (22,380) pounds of various medicines were destroyed between October 3, 2014 and March 1, 2017. Below is the list of burn dates and totals:

•October 3, 2014 2220 lbs.
•March 27, 2015 2880 lbs.
•July 17, 2015 2520 lbs.
•October 29, 2015 2300 lbs.
•December 2, 2015 1040 lbs.
•April 13, 2016 2380 lbs.
•July 20, 2016 2960 lbs.
•October 26, 2016 2800 lbs
•March 1, 2017 3280 lbs
•

Prosecutor Coronato stated, “With the hint of spring in the air we hope it moves everyone while doing spring cleaning to also clean out medicine cabinets of unused prescription meds. There is no question that unused medications many times end up in the wrong hands and are used illegally. In the worst case scenarios these forgotten pain killing medications lead to addiction or teens becoming unwitting drug dealers”.

Project Medicine Drop is the county wide initiative to make disposal of unused medications an easy convenient priority for Ocean County residents. With just under half of the municipalities in Ocean County having easily accessible medication drop boxes at police department entrances there is no excuse to clean out and drop off these potentially dangerous meds.