United States Drug Enforcement Administration

PHOENIX, Ariz. – On Oct. 28, 2023, Arizona residents once again emptied their medicine cabinets to help dispose of old, unwanted, and expired medications. In total, DEA Arizona and its law enforcement partners collected 5,414 pounds of unneeded medications at 80 collection sites statewide.

Nationwide, DEA and its law enforcement partners collected 599,897 pounds of unneeded medications at 4,675 collection sites. 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.

“Arizona, thank you for coming out and doing your part,” said DEA Arizona Special Agent in Charge Cheri Oz.  “I am proud of our Arizona communities for helping save lives. We are stronger together and together we will turn the tide.”

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 at: deadiversion.usdoj.gov.  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).