BY BRENDA AUSTIN
Sault Tribe Law Enforcement (STLE) will soon become part of a growing number of local agencies offering a safer alternative to tossing or flushing your unwanted or expired medications when they install their recently acquired medication drop box.

Families Against Narcotics (FAN) purchased the drop box from funds they raised over the past two years with a goal of investing that money back into the community to create awareness, and provide education and support for the issues of addiction.

FAN President Joe Claxton, said, “Addiction is a problem in every community right now. The drop box program is a program where FAN paid an agency out east to supply a drop box to Sault Tribe Law Enforcement. It will be bolted to the ground outside their judicial building, and anyone with medications or drugs they want to dispose of can drop them into the box - no questions asked. Tribal police will be working with the DEA to dispose of medications left in the box.”

Claxton said FAN would supply any policing agency within Chippewa County with a free drop box upon request.

Because there is a regimented process for the handling of narcotics, Claxton said they have to work through a policing agency to supply the boxes. In addition to the one being installed at tribal law enforcement, there are also drop boxes located at the Chippewa County Sheriff’s Department and the Michigan State Police Post.

“Sault Tribe Law Enforcement were the only ones willing to accept a drop box and had a place to put it when we made our calls,” Claxton said. “We talked to the Bay Mills Police Department and they weren’t ready for one yet. It has to be cemented into the ground, and the law enforcement agencies requesting the boxes are responsible for that cost. We have reached out to some local agencies and they are working through their processes. Sault Tribe had discussed it prior to us contacting them and were ready to go when we made the call.”

Sault Tribe Chief of Police Robert Marchand, said, “The pharmaceutical disposal box will allow Sault Tribe residents a year-round place to discard unused or unwanted medications. This program provides numerous benefits to our tribal community, and will give STLE an opportunity to educate the community about the dangers these medications pose if left unwanted in homes or improperly discarded. The drop box will help reduce access to potentially addictive medications and decrease water contamination due to pharmaceuticals being flushed down the drains in our homes, or contained in our landfills.”

Marchand said the drop box resembles a United States Postal Service mailbox, with a door to collect the medications, that once dropped cannot be retrieved.