Communities across the nation safely disposed of old, unwanted and expired medications on October 28, at the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) 25th National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, with law enforcement partners collecting 599,897 pounds of unneeded medications at 4,675 sites nationwide. The DEA Omaha Division accounted for 20,022 pounds collected at 174 sites.
For more than a decade, DEA’s National Prescription Drug Take Back Day has removed nearly 17.9 million pounds of unneeded medications from across the country, with states from the DEA Omaha Division contributing 620,480 pounds. According to a report published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a majority of people who use prescription medication for a nonmedical purpose obtained that medication from a family member or friend. Removing unnecessary medications from the home can help prevent situations involving; not taking medication as intended or dosed; taking someone else’s prescription; and taking the medicine for euphoric effects rather than medicinal purposes.
“Take the time, not only on Take Back Day, but throughout the year, to remove the threat that comes from leaving prescription medications in an unattended medicine cabinet,” DEA Omaha Division Special Agent in Charge Justin C. King said. “More than that, I encourage families to come together and have honest conversations about the consequences of prescription drug misuse and abuse. Education is a key component in raising awareness to the harm that can come from taking a prescription not intended for anyone but for who it was prescribed.”
DEA continues to expand opportunities to make safe disposal of medications more accessible nationwide. We encourage people to remove unnecessary medications from their home regularly and dispose of it at one of the nearly 17,000 permanent drug-drop boxes located in communities across the country. Those locations can be found here. Safe medication disposal receptacles along with DEA Take Back events provide families easy, no-cost opportunities to get rid of unnecessary medicines stored in the home.
Complete results for DEA’s fall National Prescription Drug Take Back Day are available at www.TakeBackDay.com