EVANSVILLE, IN (WFIE) -
Law enforcement officials say more than 6,000 Americans become addicted to prescription pain medications everyday, and Evansville is joining a nationwide effort to keep those drugs out of the wrong hands.
Those officials 14 News spoke with on Wednesday tell us that prescription drug abuse is the number one drug challenge to law enforcement. Greater than cocaine, heroine and methanphetamine.
The plan to combat the problem is to properly dispose of expired, unused and unwanted drugs before they reach the streets.
"More Americans died of prescription drug overdoses than were killed on our nation's highways," said US Attorney Joseph Hogsett.
Hogsett is urging the nation to fight back against prescription drug abuse, a problem that affected more than $2.4 million new users last year alone. The street value of drugs such as hydocodone, oxycotin and vicodin has sky-rocketed.
"We have seen an exponential increase here in Indiana and throughout the country in the number of armed robberies that now take place not at banks, not at financial institutions, but at pharmacies," Hogsett said.
The DEA says that prescription drugs fall into the wrong hands during home invasions. Robbers are no longer just looking for jewelry and cash, but know there's a profit to be made by going straight for the medicine cabinet.
Disposing of the drugs also keeps them from reaching teenagers that are increasingly vulnerable to becoming addicts at a young age.
"That the kids believe these drugs are safer because they're made from the big pharmaceutical companies, and when you talk to the kids and do the surveys at the school, the kids are getting the drugs from their parents' medicine cabinets," said Dennis Wichern with the DEA.
The last Take Back Day in April collected more than eight tons of unwanted prescription drugs.
Officials are expecting to collect nearly 1,000 pounds in southern Indiana this weekend.
You can take your prescription drugs to the Evansville National Guard Armory, the Indiana State Police Post on Highway 41 and the Rockport Volunteer Fire Department on Saturday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
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