DEA’s National Prescription Drug Take Back Day Removes Almost 600,000 Pounds of Unneeded Prescription Medications Across the Country

          DETROIT – On Oct. 28, 2023, the community once again emptied their medicine cabinets to help dispose of old, unwanted, and expired medications. Nationwide, DEA and its law enforcement partners collected 599,897 pounds of unneeded medications at 4,675 collection sites nationwide.

          Locally, the Detroit Field Division collected 62,771 pounds between 498 sites in Michigan, Ohio and northern Kentucky. For more than a decade, DEA’s National Prescription Take Back Day has removed almost 17.9 million pounds of unneeded medications from communities across the country.

          “We are in a fight to save lives,” said U.S. Attorney for the Western District Mark Totten. “Drug Take Back Days are an important preventative measure in the United States’ efforts to combat drug abuse and the opioid crisis. I commend our law enforcement partners, community partners, residents, and everyone who supported DEA Take Back Day to keep unwanted medications from getting into the wrong hands.”

          “Too often we see a friend or family member’s medicine cabinet unknowingly becoming the source of an accidental poisoning, an overdose, or abuse,” said DEA Detroit Special Agent in Charge Orville O. Greene. “A big thank you to our many partners who continue to show their commitment to ridding our communities of these unwanted medications.”

          According to a report published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 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.

          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 Take Back Day (dea.gov).

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