Carteret Co. Law Officers Round Up 40,000 Prescription Pills

Sheriff Asa Buck talks about the 40,000 prescription pills law officers in Carteret County recently rounded up.

By: Philip Jones | WNCT-On Your Side
Published: October 08, 2008

Some law enforcement officers here in the east say they've taken thousands of potential killers off the streets.

You may be wondering how that's possible – but as Nine On Your Side's Philip Jones explains in this Crime Tracker, Carteret County law officers say they got those killers off the streets when they rounded up thousands of unused prescription pills.

Carteret County Sheriff Asa Buck doesn't mince words when it comes to prescription drugs.

“Prescription pill abuse and people selling pills is just as much a problem -- if not more so -- than the illegal drugs, in this county and in other counties,” he said Wednesday.

In fact, the problem is so serious that a number of law enforcement agencies from around the county recently teamed up to encourage folks who live here to drop off their unused and unwanted prescription drugs.

Buck says the theft and abuse of prescription drugs constitutes about 40 percent of the drug cases his deputies work.

So now, more than ever, he says officers around the county will be pushing back at those who push these pills.

“These people are even more dangerous than most of your other drug dealers,” Buck said. “If they're selling these pills to people, people don't know what they're taking. They don't know what these medicines will do to them. I'll tell you what they'll do to you. They'll kill you.”

Folks who live here are hearing that message – community members dropped off 40,000 pills over a span of just four hours.

And Dr. Gwen Littman says, considering where most kids get their fix, that's a good thing.

“We know that over 70 percent of adolescents, for example, who abuse prescription drugs, don't get them from the internet or a drug dealer,” said Littman, who works with Healthy Carolinians of Carteret County. “They get them at home from the medicine cabinet or their neighbor's kitchen counter.”

But they now have 40,000 fewer pills to choose from.

Buck says the sheriff's department will destroy all the drugs that were collected.

Law enforcement will be holding more prescription round-up events soon -- but if you would like to go ahead and turn in some of yours, you can drop them off at the sheriff's office or ask for a deputy to come to your house.