For the first time in its history, the National Prescription Drug Take Back Day allowed people to drop off E-cigarette and vaping devices on Saturday.
Ken Solek is the Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Minneapolis and St. Paul district office. He says vaping is recognized as a national health emergency among adolescents.
"Since a lot of the vaping cartridges are being used for illicit purposes, like ingesting THC oils and other chemicals, we felt this would be a smart step to try and do our part to curb some of the issues," Solek said.
Vaping remained a topic this week in Minnesota as governor Tim Walz spend the week traveling to high schools across the state and spoke with faculty, staff, and students about vaping.
The 18th National Take Back Day on Saturday comes following a Take Back Day in April, which collected 937,443 lbs. of unused or unwanted prescription drugs.
The DEA credits previous take back days for helping curb opioid addiction and dependency. The take back days offer a safe way to dispose of the drugs.
"There's an exposure issue when you flush the drugs or throw them in the garbage," he said. "That's not the smart way to do it. The easiest is just to stop by one of our many collection sites and throw them in the dropbox."
In Minnesota, 184,870 lbs. of unwanted drugs have been collected through 17 National Drug Take Back Days.
That adds to the 11,816,393 lbs. collected nationally.