web.archive.orgReturn unused prescription opioids to your local pharmacy
Therapeutic Goods Administration social media campaign launched in July 2019, with pharmacies, urging Australians not to keep leftover prescription opioid pain medicines 'just in case' but to return them to a local pharmacy for free safe disposal, citing nearly 150 opioid-related hospitalisations a day and risks to children, pets, theft and misuse.
- Years
- 2019
- Country
- Australia
- Topic
- DrugsOpioids
- Asks people to
- Start
- Strategy
- Service linkSimple instruction
- Channel
- Point of saleSocial (paid)
- Audience
- AdultsGeneral publicAustralians prescribed opioid painkillers who have leftover tablets at home.
Evidence
NoneUnknown
No evaluation of the disposal campaign found. The same release reports that after codeine was up-scheduled to prescription-only in February 2018, codeine product supply fell about 50% (34.7M packs a year 2014-2017 to 17.2M in 2018, IQVIA data), with no observed switch to other opioids; that is a policy effect, not a campaign effect.
Sponsor (who paid)
- Therapeutic Goods Administration (Australian Government Department of Health) Foreign government, funder and creator
Credits (who made it)
Not recorded yet.
Sources
Research notes
Discovered 2026-10-22 for #17. No agency named. Free disposal is through the Return Unwanted Medicines (RUM) project (not named in the release excerpt read). The TGA also ran a 2017-18 communication and engagement strategy (consumer fact sheet, Codeine Information Hub, Nationally Coordinated Codeine Implementation Working Group) for the 1 Feb 2018 codeine up-scheduling; sources for it (Senate estimates answer SQ17-000318, Pharmacy Daily) were not opened, so it is not filed as a separate case. End year assumed.
Record cases/au-tga-return-unused-opioids.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign