The drug overdose epidemic in theUnited States is a clear and present public health, public safety, and national security threat. DEA’s National Prescription Drug Take Back Day reflects DEA’s commitment to Americans’ safety and health, encouraging the public to remove unneeded medications from their homes as a measure of preventing medication misuse and opioid addiction from ever starting.

Learn more:
‍www.dea.gov/takebackday

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Data published in September 2024 by the US Centers forDisease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms a trend, already reported anecdotally by emergency department staff across the country, that deaths from drug overdose are falling fast, for the first time since the US opioid epidemic began a generation ago.

More than 107,000 people died of a drug overdose in 2023, down from roughly 111,000 in 2022. Synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, were involved in nearly 70% of the deaths – approximately 75,000 people – in 2023, which was a slight drop from 2022.

Learn more:
Opioid crisis: Fall in US overdose deaths leaves experts scrambling for an explanation | The BMJ