Two Million Tons of Prescription Drugs Collected on DEA’s Drug Take-Back Days
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has collected a total of two million pounds of unused prescription medications during its five National Prescription Drug Take-Back Days, the agency announced Thursday. During the latest Take-Back Day on September 29, almost half a million pounds of drugs was collected, the Associated Press reports.
The drug collection initiative, which took place over the past two years, was a collaboration between the DEA and state and local law enforcement. People were urged to empty their medicine cabinets, kitchen drawers and bedside tables of prescription drugs that were expired or no longer needed, and bring them to one of thousands of designated disposal sites around the nation.
According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2011 more than six million Americans used prescription drugs nonmedically in the past month.
I suggested that our local agency get involved, which they did. BUt the Phoenix area is full of 55+ communities and the dates of the events are always as the snowbirds are leaving or around the time they return and the events are lightly publicized. They’d get a lot more turned in if they moved the dates up or back a month and promoted them better.
I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that the headline says tons and the article says pounds. At tons, that would be over eleven hundred pounds for every person in the USA. Still at a half pound per person that is amazing that there is that much left-over drugs in our medicine cabinets, and that’s just the pills we were prescribed but didn’t take! We must have been listening to too much big pharma advertising.
So which is it? two million TONS or two million POUNDS?
Which is it, tons or pounds? I suspect pounds. The headline might need editing. Thanks, this is a great program and I send advance notice to over 200 professionals in my area to get the word out.