Google's Commitment to Combat the Opioid Crisis

Have you heard what Google is doing to help combat the opioid crisis?

In advance of National Prescription Drug Take Back Day this Saturday, they’re partnering with the Drug Enforcement Administration on an online locator tool that uses the Google Maps API to surface over 5K locations where people can discard unused or expired prescription drugs. They introduced the tool with DEA in April of this year, and it was used by over 50K users at that time. They’re promoting the tool on the Google.com homepage for all US users today [Friday], in advance of Saturday’s Take Back Day.

Next month, they’ll be launching an effort to promote year-round disposal options in Google Maps, with location data from several states and from Walgreens, who operates over 1000 disposal kiosks in their stores nationwide. They announced the Walgreens partnership at the opioid bill signing event at the White House on Wednesday.

Finally, they’re continuing to support families and communities coping with opioid addiction. Earlier this year, Google announced a matching grant to support a multi-year expansion of the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids’ Parent Helpline. So far, that matching grant has driven over $1M of impact, enabling the helpline to double capacity and help an additional 30,000 families. Google and YouTube also committed $5M in in-kind ads to the Ad Council and White House opioid addiction advertising campaign that began earlier this year.

You can find more about their recently announced efforts to help combat the opioid epidemic in a Google blog post. This really makes me proud. I love Mountain View.