372 tons of unwanted medication collected during Nat'l. Rx Drug Take Back Day
Washington, D.C. – The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), with the help of 4,276 law enforcement agencies across the nation, removed 744,082 pounds (372 tons) of old, unwanted or no longer needed medications from medicine cabinets during the 21st National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, held Oct. 23 at 4,982 collection sites. Since its inception, this program has removed more than 15.2 million pounds of medication from circulation.
These easy to access drugs far too often become a gateway to drug addiction. According to a report published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a majority of people who misused a prescription medication obtained the medicine from a family member or friend. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, that in 2020, more than 93,000 people died of drug overdoses in the United States - the largest number of drug-related deaths ever recorded in a year. Opioid-related deaths accounted for 75% of all overdose deaths in 2020.
“On DEA’s National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, communities across America came together to rid medicine cabinets of unneeded medications, helping to prevent prescription drug misuse,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “Take Back Day is a critical effort to curb the historic surge in U.S. overdoses. We know prevention starts at home. The simple step of clearing out medications that are no longer needed makes our homes safer, prevents prescription drug misuse, and, ultimately, can help save lives.”
DEA’s Take Back Day program is more important than ever before. In Oct. 2021, the DEA issued a public safety alert and launched the "One Pill Can Kill" public awareness campaign to warn Americans of a surge in deadly, fake prescription pills, driven by drug traffickers seeking to exploit the U.S. opioid epidemic and the misuse of prescription pills. Criminal drug networks are shipping chemicals from China to Mexico, where they are converted to dangerous substances like fentanyl and methamphetamine, and then pressed into pills. The end result - deadly, fake prescription pills - made and marketed by criminal drug networks to prey on Americans for profit. These fake, deadly pills are widely available and deadlier than ever. Fake pills are designed to appear nearly identical to legitimate prescriptions such as Oxycontin®, Percocet®, Vicodin®, Adderall®, Xanax® and other frequently abused medicines. Criminal drug networks are selling these pills through social media, e-commerce, the dark web and existing distribution networks.
The "One Pill Can Kill" public safety alert issued a warning that the only safe medications are ones prescribed by a trusted medical professional and dispensed by a licensed pharmacist. Any pills that do not meet this standard are unsafe and potentially deadly. DEA’s National Prescription Drug Take Back Day encourages the public to remove unneeded medications from their homes as a measure to prevent the misuse of medication and also prevent opioid addiction from ever starting.
Complete results from DEA’s 21st National Prescription Drug Take Back Day are available here: https://takebackday.dea.gov/sites/default/files/NTBI%2021%20totals.pdf
For those who missed DEA’s Take Back Day, there are opportunities to regularly and safely dispose of unneeded medications, throughout the year, at more than 13,000 pharmacies, hospitals, police or fire departments, and businesses.