Think about your medicine cabinet at home for a minute. Do you have prescription drugs left over, maybe pushed toward the back of the cabinet and forgotten?
A great way to get rid of them is coming up on Oct. 27 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the semi-annual Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Take Back. Your disposing of your prescription drugs at this event ensures they can’t fall into the wrong hands.
The DEA Take Back is one of our prevention coalitions’ favorite activities. This event happens in communities all over East Texas and the rest of the country. Local law enforcement set up come-and-go collection sites where residents can drop off their leftover prescription medication, no questions asked.
Residents who come to drop off their drugs almost always thank the law enforcement for holding this event, and often say they wanted to dispose of their leftover prescription drugs but weren’t sure how.
To see Takeback locations in your area, check out the DEA Take Back site.
How did the opioid crisis get started?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 72,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2017, and the number of deaths has climbed every year since opioids started to be prescribed in the 90s, with the total deaths now more than 600,000.
According to Vox News, “The opioid epidemic began in the 1990s, when doctors became increasingly aware of the burdens of pain. Pharmaceutical companies saw an opportunity, and pushed doctors — with misleading marketing about the safety and efficacy of the drugs — to prescribe opioids to treat all sorts of pain. Doctors, many exhausted by dealing with difficult-to-treat pain patients, complied — in some states, writing enough prescriptions to fill a bottle of pills for each resident.”
What is the scope of the problem in East Texas?
According to the Regional Needs Assessment, controlled substances (prescriptions that have a higher potential for abuse) are prescribed at a higher rate in East Texas than the rest of the state, and that access contributes to the fact that teens in East Texas abuse prescription drugs at a higher rate than their peers across Texas.
How does having leftover pills in your cabinet contribute to the crisis?
The opioid crisis has been in the news a lot lately, and Americans are beginning to understand the impact of leftover drugs sitting in their medicine cabinet. Whenever teens who abuse prescription drugs are surveyed, the majority say they get them for free from friends and family — and sometimes take them from a loved one without their knowledge. Not to mention that prescription drugs are sometimes taken when a burglary occurs to either be consumed or sold for a big profit.
When you dispose of your prescription drugs responsibly with law enforcement, you are not only protecting your teen or another loved one from potential misuse, but also protecting the community. If you can’t make it out to the National Rx Drug Tack Back event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on October 27, check out our How To Dispose page for other ways to safely get rid of your medications.