DEA Announces 10th Annual National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) recently announced the date of the 10th Annual National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. The nationwide event will take place Saturday, Sept. 26, from 10 am to 2 pm, local times, in states across the country, except for Pennsylvania and Delaware, where the event will take place on Saturday, Sept. 12. During the event, residents can drop off their unused, unwanted or expired prescription medications for safe disposal.
Collection sites in every local community can be found by visiting www.dea.gov. This site will be continuously updated with new take-back locations.
The National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day addresses the nation’s prescription drug abuse epidemic. Many Americans are not aware that medicines that linger in home cabinets are highly susceptible to misuse and abuse, especially among teens. According to a 2012 Partnership Attitude Tracking study, 1 in 4 teens report having misused or abused a prescription drug at least once. And between 2008 and 2012, the number increased 33% to about 5 million teens. The vast majority of misused drugs – more than 70% – are reportedly obtained from another person’s medicine cabinet, not from a dealer on the street. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), prescription medication misuse and abuse causes more accidental deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.
For more information, visit www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov.