On August 31, 2016, the Summit County Community Partnership (SCCP) launched an effort to remove over 1.2 million prescription pills from Summit County. Today, one year later, partners in the project gathered at Acme Fresh Market on West Market Street to celebrate a huge step in the right direction.

Working with their major partner, Acme Fresh Market Pharmacy, and many other partners, the SCCP has distributed nearly 40,000 prescription drug disposal pouches. According to recent survey data, SCCP estimates that 1.2 million pills and 323,000 opiates will be safely removed from Summit County medicine cabinets if each pouch is used to capacity.

The prescription drug pouch program – known as the Deterra Project – is a major prevention and harm reduction initiative in Summit County targeting the devastating opiate epidemic. 

SCCP reported that 26% of participants used the pouch to dispose of unused narcotics or opioids and 67% who used the pouch don’t regularly clean out their medicine cabinet. “This is our target population” said Darryl Brake, SCCP’s Executive Director, “we want to reach people with unused opiates who don’t normally take those medicines to a DUMP box or Drug Take Back Day.” Participants also reported that they liked using the pouches, with 98% saying they found the pouch easy to use.

Read more about the results from the first year of implementation of the Deterra project. Download results PDF