BATON ROUGE - Saturday was National Drug Take Back Day, an event started by the Drug Enforcement Agency in 2010. All across the country, people could dispose of any excess or expired prescription and over-the-counter medication at designated take back day locations.

One of those locations was at the Baton Rouge Police Headquarters on Airline Highway, where people could drive up, give volunteers their old or unneeded medication and go on their way.

The take back event in Baton Rouge has become a big community partnership among organizations like BRPD, the DEA, Louisiana Blue, the Zachary Fire Department and more.

"We see lots of opioids, so hydrocodone, lots of leftover fentanyl from pharmaceutical fentanyl, not illicit fentanyl. People dropping off fentanyl lollipops," Kandyce Cowart with Louisiana Blue said.

After dropping off the medications, people could also pick up a box of Narcan, which is effective in responding to an opioid overdose. They could also learn about AEDs at the event's resource fair.

Officials talked about how the amount of unneeded medication a person will have can be far more than they imagine.

"Medications that are left over in the home, maybe following an illness or a surgery, they can get in the hands of children, young people, pets, and they can be lethal in any of those circumstances," Cowart said.

There are typically two DEA drug take back events each year: one in the spring and one in the fall. However, the DEA says there are still many opportunities for people who missed Saturday's event.

"There are now 17,000 locations nationwide that are open every day of the year where the same kind of drop-off can happen. If people want to find a spot closest to them, they got to deatakeback.com," Steven Hofer with the DEA New Orleans Division said.

Officials at the event said thousands of pounds of medications were disposed of in the four hours. In the 15 years nationwide since the event was started, the DEA says it has disposed of around 9,000 tons of medication, or 18 million pounds, at these events.