DEA’s National Prescription Drug Take Day Removes Almost 600,000 Pounds of Unneeded Prescription Medications Across the Country
ST. LOUIS – On Oct. 28, 2023, the community once again emptied their medicine cabinets to help dispose of old, unwanted, and expired medications. Nationwide, the Drug Enforcement Administration and its law enforcement partners collected 599,897 pounds of unneeded medications at 4,675 collection sites nationwide.
Locally, the DEA St. Louis Division collected 28,680 pounds between 232 sites. Missouri residents turned in 21,218 pounds; Kansas: 5,459 pounds; and southern Illinois: 2,003 pounds.
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. 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.
“Drug use prevention is truly a community effort,” said Special Agent in Charge Michael Davis, head of DEA operations in Missouri, Kansas and southern Illinois. “We’re proud to work with our law enforcement partners and community members to collect these drugs. With every prescription pill turned in on National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, that’s potentially a life saved.”
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 nearly17,000 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 National Prescription Drug Take Back Day are available at Take Back Day (dea.gov).
