National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is coming up on April 27, and you might be just the person it’s aimed at! It’s estimated that 6 million Americans misuse prescription drugs each year. Many of these people are not the ones to whom the drugs were originally prescribed. Instead, drugs like opiates (like Oxycontin) and benzodiazepines (like Xanax) are often given by the prescribed to a friend or relative. Other times, the drugs are stolen directly from a medicine cabinet.

While it might not seem like a big deal to let an old prescription sit around, there is potential for abuse when controlled substances are outside of their prescribed arena of use. Even if you were originally prescribed certain controlled substances, you really aren’t supposed to have them beyond the prescription range, even if you have some left over at the end of the month.

It’s not a good idea to throw away controlled substances in the trash, because this can make you a target for theft, as trash is sometimes searched by chemical-dependent people. It’s not a good idea to flush unwanted drugs either, as many of these chemicals persist in the water supply and are very difficult to filter out.

That’s why events like National Prescription Drug Take Back Day exist. On this day, thousands of facilities around the United States will be set up, often in collaboration with law enforcement, for the safe disposal of all kinds of drugs. The last such day was in October 2018, and there were nearly 6,000 sites in operation. More than 900,000 pounds of prescription drugs were collected! Many of these were dangerous controlled substances than could have resulted in addiction or death if put in the hands of the wrong person.

Drug addiction and overdose deaths are major problems in the United States. Opiates (the Oxy drugs), Benzos (Xanax and others), and Stimulants (Ritalin, Adderall, etc.) all have high abuse potential, though they can be lifesavers when applied to the right illness or injury. Many people who become hooked on these drugs find them for the first time in the medicine cabinet of a friend or loved one. Sometimes they are stolen and sold on the black market, and other times consumed by the person who finds them.

As much as it can seem like a good idea to save leftover controlled substances for a rainy day, this puts others at risk. Everyone is at risk of becoming infatuated with strong chemicals that affect mood, pain sensitivity, and life satisfaction. If you want to prevent these drugs from being misused by the people you care about (or by yourself), it’s best to get rid of them by taking advantage of licensed disposal sites like the ones in this campaign.

If you decide to take leftover drugs to one of the Take Back Day sites, don’t worry about being judged for doing so. The disposal of these drugs is a very casual “no questions asked” affair, much in the same way that community gun drop off days work. The fewer illicit drugs that are out in our homes and communities, the fewer instances of drug misuse and overdose will occur.

Once all of the drugs are collected, they will be rendered “non-retrievable” by some kind of chemical process that denatures the drugs, forever removing them from the market. National Prescription Drug Take Back Day may not be the final solution for prescription drug epidemics, but as nearly a million pounds of drugs are collected this way at each bi-annual event, they are certainly a step in the right direction.