This Saturday ( Sept. 26 ) from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. the Junction City Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration will give the public an opportunity to prevent pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs.

You can bring your pills for disposal to the Junction City Police Department at 210 East 9th Street. ( The DEA cannot accept liquids or needles or sharps, only pills or patches.) The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked.

This is the tenth time in five years the JCPD has conducted a Take Back event for unwanted prescription drugs.

Last September, Ameircans turned in 309 tons of prescription drugs at nearly 5,500 sites operated by the DEA and more than 4,000 of its state and local law enforcement partners. When those results are combined with what was collected in its eight previous Take Back events, DEA and its partners have taken in over 4.8 million pounds — more than 2,400 tons — of pills.

This initiative address a public safety and health issue. Medicines that languish in home cabinets are susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to those drugs. Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet.  In addition Americans are also advised that their usual methods of disposing of unused medicines — flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash — both pose potential safety and health hazards.