DEA holds nationwide prescription drug Take-Back Day on April 28

This spring, the Drug Enforcement Administration and its national and community partners will give the public another opportunity to prevent pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs. On Saturday, April 28th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time, DEA and its partners will hold their fourth National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day at sites nationwide. The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked.
In the South Lake Tahoe area take-back stations will be at the Safeway parking lot, 1020 Johnson Blvd. from 9 to 1 p.m. and the Safeway Round Hill, 212 Elks Point Road, according to the DEA website.

Participating agencies in the Northern and Eastern Judicial Districts of California include state and local law enforcement located in the following counties: Alameda, Amador, Butte, Contra Costa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Fresno, Glenn, Kern, Kings, Lassen, Marin, Mariposa, Merced, Monterey, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Tulare, Tuolumne, Yolo, and Yuba. Collection sites in every local community can be found by going here. This site will be continuously updated with new take-back locations.

Americans participating in DEA’s three previous Take-Back Days turned in nearly a million pounds — nearly 500 tons — of prescription drugs at over 5,300 sites operated by more than 4,000 of the DEA’s state and local law enforcement partners. Last fall’s event encouraged participation by long term care facilities and Indian nations as well as the general public.
This initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue. Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high — more Americans currently abuse prescription drugs than the number of those using cocaine, hallucinogens, and heroin combined, according to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet.

“Prescription drug abuse is a serious public health issue and can have a devastating impact on families and communities. We can all make a difference by taking advantage of this opportunity to clean out our medicine cabinets of unused medications and disposing of them at a prescription drug take-back site during this event,” stated DEA Special Agent in Charge Anthony D. Williams.

The public can find a nearby collection site by visiting www.dea.gov1, clicking on the “Got Drugs?” icon, and following the links to a database, where they enter their zip code. Law enforcement agencies interested in operating one or more collection sites on April 28 can register with the DEA by clicking on the above-cited “Got Drugs?” icon and calling the DEA POC for their state, which can be under the link for law enforcement.

Four days after the September 2010 prescription drug take-back event, Congress passed the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010, which amends the Controlled Substances Act to allow an “ultimate user” of controlled substance medications to dispose of them by delivering them to entities authorized by the Attorney General to accept them. The Act also allows the Attorney General to authorize long term care facilities to dispose of their residents’ controlled substances in certain instances. DEA is in the process of drafting regulations to implement the Act.