Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu.

That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

This is Lindsay Smith-Rogers.

Saturday, October 28th is National Drug Takeback Day.

To help you clean out your cabinets, Dr. Caleb

Alexander is here to talk about why the day exists, what medications might qualify, and how to

find a drop-off event near you. If you're listening to this podcast after the 28th, don't worry,

there are plenty of opportunities to safely dispose of your unused or expired meds.

Just to note that in this episode, we will discuss medical equipment, such as syringes or sharps as

they're called. Most DEA drop-off locations will not accept these as part of takeback day,

but you can take them to pharmacies, health clinics, police stations, and many other locations as long as they

are in a thick, secure container, like a milk jug or a laundry detergent container. Let's listen.

Hila Alexander, thank you so much for being back on public health on call. How are you?

I'm fine and kind of you to have me. Thank you.

Wonderful. So today we are going to talk about National Drug Takeback Day, which is this

Saturday, October 28th. So first of all, tell us why does this day exist?

Takeback days are one of many means that are used to try to claw back the millions of bottles of prescription drugs that are sitting all over America and people's bathroom cabinets and bedroom nightstands and the like.

And so it's an effort that has been conducted successfully in local communities around the country in an effort to try to

reduce the amount of unused and unneeded prescription medicines that are just sitting around

all of our houses.

...