Full Notification

Cass County Sheriff Joseph M. Underwood Jr. reports that the Cass County Sheriff's Office participated in the 9th National Drug Take Back on Sept. 26th 2015. Locations were set up throughout the county where there are police agencies or county substations to collect the outdated and unused prescription medication. Silver Creek Township collected 36.8 pounds, Howard Township collected 20.6 pounds, Marcellus Township collected 6.4 pounds, Edwardsburg Township collected 26.2 pounds and The City of Dowagiac collected 4.0 pounds of medication. This brought a total of 94 Pounds of prescription drugs to the Sheriff's Office to be turned over to the DEA to be destroyed. Over the Past five years this county as collected over 430 pounds of pills collected in Cass County.

In 2014 there was enough schedule 2 & 3 (high risk of abuse) prescriptions issued to Cass County residents from a Michigan Pharmacies for each household in Cass County to have 153 pills. Because this number does not include prescriptions filled in Indiana Pharmacies to Cass County residents the number of pills per household is most likely closer to 200 pills. 85% of the Scheduled 2&3 prescriptions filled for Cass County residents, in 2014 were Opioid painkillers. The number of Prescription drug related deaths caused by opioids in Michigan almost doubled between 1999 and 2013. 45% of those that died of an opioid related overdose in Michigan were between the ages of 15 and 34. Nationally 1 in 15 people that use prescription pain killers for non-medical purposes will use heroin sometime in their lifetime. For all of these reasons it is very important to collect and destroy any un-used prescription medications. Cass County is proud to be a part in reducing the availability of these medications through this successful drug take back program.