DEA’s Take Back Day, Disposing Unused Drugs and Deterring Drug Trafficking
On October 23, 2021, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) hosted its 21st National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. With nearly 5,000 collection sites nationwide, law enforcement officers collected nearly 745,000 pounds of unused prescription drugs (that’s about the weight of the Status of Liberty).
Since the initiative's inception, 15.2 million pounds of medication have been removed from circulation, adding to ongoing efforts to end the U.S. opioid epidemic. According to the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, approximately 9.3 million people misused prescription pain relievers – most of these drugs were obtained often from the home medicine cabinet.
“It’s unfortunate that in our line of work, we’ve seen too many cases where a person’s drug addiction began by abusing prescription medications,” stated DEA Omaha Division Special Agent in Charge Justin C. King, “National Prescription Drug Take Back Day provides a way to safely and anonymously dispose of your unneeded medications. More importantly, it prevents medications from falling into the wrong hands.”
DEA's Take Back Day last October drew in a record amount of expired, unused medications, with the public turning in close to 500 tons of unwanted medications. By assisting people with disposing of potentially harmful prescription drugs, the DEA is working to reduce the number of overdose deaths and to limit the proliferation of addictions.
“The United States is in the midst of an opioid epidemic—drug overdoses are up thirty percent over the last year alone and taking more than 250 lives every day,” stated DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “The majority of opioid addictions in America start with prescription pills found in medicine cabinets at home. What’s worse, criminal drug networks are exploiting the opioid crisis by making and falsely marketing deadly, fake pills as legitimate prescriptions, which are now flooding U.S. communities.”
As previously reported in FEDagent, the DEA launched the One Pill Can Kill campaign to advise the public on drug trafficking networks' production of counterfeit prescription pills, stressing the identical appearance of counterfeit pills as genuine Oxycontin®, Percocet®, Vicodin®, Adderall®, Xanax®, and so on.
DEA New Jersey Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Susan A. Gibson continues to lead this effort in her division. SAC Gibson was featured on FEDtalk to discuss her work and commitment to justice after she received the 2020 Women in Federal Law Enforcement (WIFLE) Public Service award.