Last reviewed: October 2026
Mark your calendar: National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is Saturday, October 24, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time. Thousands of drop-off sites across the country, including pharmacies and police departments throughout Texas, will take your unused and expired medications for free, no questions asked. Find a site near you.
The timing is good. In a few weeks, the holidays will fill houses with people, and people bring bags. Purses on the floor, pill organizers on the nightstand, a bottle left on the bathroom counter. Add your own medicine cabinet, with leftover prescriptions from last year’s surgery or a sleep aid nobody takes anymore, and there is a lot of medication within reach of people it was never meant for. Clearing it out now, before the first guest arrives, is one of the simplest ways to keep everyone safe.
Why the Leftovers Matter
Most pills that get shared or misused do not come from a stranger. They come from someone’s medicine cabinet. Among the roughly 8 million Americans who misused a prescription pain reliever in 2024, 42.3 percent got it from a friend or relative the last time, most often for free, according to SAMHSA’s 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. In Texas, about 808,000 people misused a prescription pain reliever in the past year, according to SAMHSA’s state estimates.
Many shared pills are leftovers, like the rest of a pain prescription after surgery, a sleep aid someone stopped needing, or half a course of antibiotics. If they are not in the cabinet, they cannot be passed around the dinner table or found by a curious grandchild.
How to Get Rid of Them
Before October 24, pull out anything expired, unused, or no longer prescribed to someone in the house. Then choose the easiest option:
- Bring it to Take Back Day on October 24. DEA’s National Prescription Drug Take Back Day runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time at thousands of sites nationwide. Drop-off is free and anonymous. The April 2026 event alone collected more than 642,000 pounds of unused medication.
- Missed it? Use a year-round drop box. Many Texas pharmacies and police departments keep medication drop boxes or kiosks open all year. Find an authorized location through the DEA’s collection site search or ask your pharmacist.
- Ask about mail-back envelopes. Prepaid medication mail-back envelopes are sold at many pharmacies and online, and some pharmacies give them out free.
- No drop box nearby? Use the trash, not the toilet. The FDA recommends mixing pills with something unappealing, like used coffee grounds, dirt, or cat litter, sealing the mix in a bag or container, and throwing it in the household trash. Scratch your personal information off the empty bottle. Do not flush medication unless the label specifically tells you to.
If You Find a Pill You Can’t Identify
Cleaning out a cabinet often turns up a few surprises: loose pills in a plastic bag, a bottle with the label worn off, something a relative left behind after their last visit. If you can’t tell what a pill is, who it was prescribed to, or where it came from, don’t take it and don’t pass it along. Put it in the Take Back Day bag.
That matters more than it used to. Pills bought online, through social media, or passed along outside a pharmacy can be counterfeit. DEA lab testing in 2024 found that 5 out of every 10 fake pills containing fentanyl carried a potentially deadly dose, and those pills are made to look like common prescriptions such as Percocet, Xanax, and Adderall. A loose pill that looks familiar is not proof of what it is.
The good news is that fewer families are facing this. U.S. overdose deaths fell about 27 percent in 2024, according to CDC provisional data, and Texas fentanyl deaths dropped more than 42 percent between July 2024 and June 2025 compared with the year before, according to the Office of the Texas Governor. Clearing out pills you can’t trace is one small way to help keep that trend going. The rule is simple: if you can’t trace a pill back to a pharmacy label, it belongs in the drop-off bag.
A House Full of Bags in Reach of Children
The Texas Poison Center Network’s holiday guidance names this directly: visitors’ purses and bags often hold unattended medication, sometimes in bottles without child-resistant caps, and a relative’s or friend’s house may not be set up the way a regular household is.
The numbers back this up. In 2024, pain relievers were the second most common substance in poison center cases for children age 5 and younger nationwide, behind only household cleaning products, according to national poison center data. Unintentional exposures peak among 1- and 2-year-olds. In Texas, children under 6 accounted for almost half of all exposures handled by the Texas Poison Center Network in 2024, out of 238,634 total cases.
A Quick Checklist for Hosts
- Put your own medications in a locked cabinet or somewhere well out of reach before people arrive.
- Ask guests to keep purses, bags, and pill organizers up high or in a closed room, not on the floor or a low table.
- If you are the guest, keep your medication in its original container and in your bag, not on the counter.
- Save the Poison Help line, 1-800-222-1222, in your phone. It connects you to the Texas Poison Center Network 24 hours a day.
- Consider keeping naloxone (Narcan) at home. It can reverse an opioid overdose and is available over the counter at Texas pharmacies.
When to Call for Help
- A child or guest got into someone else’s medication: call the Texas Poison Center Network at 1-800-222-1222 right away, even before symptoms appear.
- Unusual sleepiness, confusion, vomiting, or unsteadiness after a possible exposure: call poison control or get emergency care.
- Trouble breathing, bluish lips, a seizure, or someone who will not wake up: call 911. If naloxone is available and an opioid may be involved, give it.
- Not sure what was taken or how much: call poison control anyway. It is free, confidential, and takes a few minutes.
Surepoint Emergency Centers keeps physicians on-site around the clock across Texas, with lab work and imaging available in the same visit, for the nights when a phone call is not enough.
If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 or visit your nearest emergency room immediately. This post is for informational purposes only and does not replace guidance from your healthcare provider.
Sources include: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2024 NSDUH and 2022-2023 NSDUH State Estimates: Texas; British Journal of General Practice, Understanding non-recreational prescription medication-sharing behaviours: a systematic review (2024); U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Where and How to Dispose of Unused Medicines (2025); Drug Enforcement Administration, National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, 2026 Take Back Day results, and One Pill Can Kill fact sheet (2024); Poison Control, National Poison Center Statistics, 2024; Texas Poison Center Network, About TPCN and Poison Proof for the Holidays; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Provisional 2024 Overdose Death Data; Office of the Texas Governor, Fentanyl Poisoning Awareness Month (2025). Current as of October 2026.