Quantification of an ongoing community-based medication take-back program

Ongoing, collaborative medication take-back events are an effective method of removing unused medications from the community. Although the majority of medications collected were originally dispensed in community pharmacies, the average unused prescription from mail-service sources contained almost three times as many dosage units. These data suggest that the larger quantities more typically dispensed by mail-service pharmacies may contribute considerably to the problems associated with surplus medications. Further studies are needed to investigate this association.