More than 2,300 pounds of unwanted or expired prescription drugs poured into area law enforcement agencies last month, which officials labeled a positive step because the “epidemic” of prescription medicine abuse often begins with available pills in the home.

The biannual, Drug Enforcement Agency-led National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day held in late April brought in 1,000 pounds of medication to sites in Butler County, according to statistics obtained by this newspaper. That total was part of 552,161 pounds of medication collected nationally.

Officials have stressed disposing of excess prescription pills while citing that 80 percent of teens who misuse prescription drugs get them from friends or relatives.

Some law enforcement agencies have erected permanent drop-off boxes in their lobbies, and one state official said more changes to prescription guidelines could be coming.

“In the eyes of the DEA, getting unwanted, expired or unneeded controlled substances out of people’s homes is very important,” said DEA Special Agent Richard Isaacson of the Detroit Field Division. “One way the community can do its part is to get rid of these pills.”

With more than 1.5 million pounds of medication collected in four national take-back days since September 2010, the DEA and Ohio officials said increases in prescriptions have ballooned the amount of available pills. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in the calendar year 2010 enough pain medication was prescribed to “medicate every American adult with a standard pain treatment dose ... taken every (four) hours for a month.”

In Ohio, more than 692 million pain pills were distributed in retail pharmacies in 2010, and two-thirds of those who received prescriptions had medication left over, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

The sheer amount of pills in circulation makes drop-off operations for those who changed medications, were overprescribed or have extra because of a death in the family critical for fighting accidental overdoses, officials said.

“And we’re not necessarily a society that’s in more pain,” said Cameron McNamee, injury policy specialist with the Violence and Injury Prevention Program at the Ohio Department of Health. “There was a swing of the needle back in the late ’90s where people started prescribing more of these types of drugs, and I think as the state tries to swing that pendulum back, we’re still dealing with fallout of the vast amount of substances that are still floating around.”

In Monroe, the police department acquired a permanent drop-off box through the company MedReturn late last year. “A lot of people flush (unneeded or expired medicines) down the toilet,” said Monroe police Lt. Brian Curlis. “We’re concerned with getting them off the street and disposing of them properly.”

That’s one reason Congress passed the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010, which helped establish the national take-back days with DEA oversight.

The DEA’s Isaacson said the steady demand for such a program has been eye-opening.

That was the case last month for the Hamilton Police Department, which collected 280 pounds of medication in the drug take-back day, the largest single-site take in the seven-county area.

“I think more than anything people were relieved to have it,” said Hamilton police Officer Kristy Collins. “They said, ‘Thank goodness you’re doing this.’ ”

As the returned pills pile up, so does the pressure in some corners to produce more changes. Last week, Gov. John Kasich and his Governors Cabinet Opiate Action Team (GCOAT) introduced new prescription guidelines for emergency room physicians, which include a three-day limit for painkiller prescriptions.

McNamee, of the Ohio Department of Health, said GCOAT could produce other guidelines in the future while hoping to decrease the amount of pills in circulation.

“The next step is to really look at the more (general practitioners) and the other physicians who are able to prescribe these medications and really develop some kind of guidelines or best practices in terms of prescribing,” he said.

“Whether we’re looking at a dosing threshold or whether they have to get a consult after they exceed a dosing threshold or whether we’re looking at other things.”