By Shaamini Yogaretnam, OTTAWA CITIZEN

OTTAWA — Ottawa police held their first prescription drug drop-off Saturday morning and, within an hour, had received unneeded narcotics with a potential street value of nearly $5,000 on the street.
The haul, which was collected in a Toys R Us parking lot on Merivale Road, included many of the big-name street items that officers with the Ottawa police drug unit frequently work under cover to try to seize, including Percocet, Oxycodone and Tylenol 3, said Det. Joe Pratecante.

Most people who are prescribed narcotics for injuries or surgeries tend to keep them around well after the physical pain is gone, sometimes simply because they don’t know how to dispose of the pills.

This could lead to trouble, police said.

“The worry is that if someone does break into their house, then they have access to those drugs,” Pratecante said. “Their children could also have access to those drugs and they can either sell them or use them themselves.”

A single Oxycodone pill can fetch anywhere from $200 to $300 on the street, depending on its strength and the location of the deal. Drugs in Ottawa tend to be cheaper because they are more readily available than drugs in more remote places.

Selling a handful of pills from mom’s post-surgery prescription can be quite lucrative, police said.

A 2009 study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health found that recreational prescription drug use is prevalent among youth, with 20 per cent of surveyed students in grades seven through 12 saying that they have used at least one prescription drug without having a prescription for that drug.

Saturday’s event was part of countrywide policing efforts in partnership with public health units to collect prescription drugs, dubbed National Prescription Drug Dropoff Day led by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

The effort is intended to reduce access to the pills. Reducing access means potentially reducing addiction which could then reduce the criminal activity often required to feed addictions, the policing theory goes.

Police officers with the drug unit will sort the drugs, put aside the non-prescription drugs that some people brought in also looking for a safe way to dispose of them, group the narcotics, count them and forward records of the drugs to Health Canada. Previously, Health Canada would also be responsible for destroying the drugs, but the federal department now allows police to perform that function.

The drugs aren’t just flushed down the toilet or thrown out in a Dumpster, which are the precise methods that police don’t want people use. Large amounts of drugs in the water supply are harmful to the environment and could have other health effects, and throwing a half-bottle of pills in the trash won’t stop a determined person from sifting through the rubble.

Ottawa police take the drugs to a third party’s facility where they are burned in a process that prevents toxins from being released.

The non-prescription drugs that police collect are destroyed in a separate process.

Ottawa police are looking into the possibility of designating drop-off zones at police stations throughout the city. The logistics of that plan, which include on-site secure bins and proper police monitoring of the bins, are still being discussed, Most Ottawa-area pharmacies will also take back narcotics.